Originally Posted by
Syd_M
So you can take a screenshot; good for you! You are now on the level of my 10-year old nephew. The question is whether you understood what you read, especially the parts that you underlined as if they were so important. Here's what you don't seem to understand: coronaviruses are a family of viruses. The specific coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is called SARS-CoV-2. Before a name was decided for it, it was called a novel coronavirus (novel meaning new), which means that it was a virus that had not previously been discovered or identified. What does it mean that SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus? Not much, except that it gives us an idea on what the virus might do and how it may propagate. It being a coronavirus doesn't even help much when it comes to finding a treatment or vaccine, except for giving scientists a starting point on where to begin their study. It's like getting bitten by a snake, which is a large family of creatures (analogous to the coronavirus family, in this example). Treatment for getting bitten by a rattlesnake isn't the same as getting bitten by a cobra — you have to get the right antivenom for the specific species of snake. In the same way, you can't use the same treatments used for SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, or HCoV-OC43 (one of the hundreds of viruses that cause the common cold) for SARS-CoV-2, because despite being in the same huge family, they aren't the same thing, and in some cases, aren't even very closely related. That's why there's currently no cure, because SARS-CoV-2 is so new, that people haven't had time to develop a cure or vaccine for it yet. It's that simple.