And as I’ve said, if Herd Immunity is not attainable, then no vaccine is possible. I would stipulate this as an absolute principle, since the two are connected in principle. Cures may be possible, and certainly palliatives, which exist already.
But as an out of the box idea, what if the requirement to come back to school or work were not a vaccination, but an Inflammation and Vitamin D test? Low inflammation and high Vitamin D levels equate to relative resistance to the disease. You almost certainly won’t die of it, and are unlikely even to be sickened significantly by it. This would apply at all ages up to perhaps 70, which is to say pretty much the entirety of the working age population.
The interesting aspect of this idea is that inflammation, according to most health experts, is really the key element in substantially all health ailments. It is implicated in heart disease, cancer, stroke, autoimmune disorders and overall immune health.
What if, to combat this disease, we implemented policies which extended the national longevity by 5-10 years, and in so doing cut overall healthcare costs precipitously? After all, we are all our own best doctors.
That would be interesting.