So I'm no expert in medical sciences, but have some basic knowledge. Here's what I think:
You're basically proposing a form of vaccination. Essentially everyone knows that a vaccine would be the way out of this mess. There's loads of research on Vaccines for Covid-19 right now. Your idea isn't exceptionally surprising, as you write yourself it's close to how some of the early vaccines worked.
I am reasonably convinced researchers into vaccines right now turn every stone to look for possible ways to make a vaccine as fast as possible. They probably got the idea already and if it's a feasible path someone is working on it.
That said making a vaccine still faces some basic challenges that every medicine faces: You want to be pretty sure that a) it works and b) it has no massive surprising sideeffects. Given that you want to give it to potentially almost everyone on the planet, you want to be really sure.
> Given that you want to give it to potentially almost everyone on the planet, you want to be really sure.
This is why I have a hard time with the current crisis. We are in what is now universally called a "global health crisis".
Measures are being taken to help prevent the virus that are incredibly costly for the economy, which will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs, and that will indirectly kill thousands of people.
Yet when it comes to vaccines and treatment tests, we use the usual approach, tests on a very very small number of patients, regulator validation that takes months to process, x phase trials where each phase needs to be tested x times. All these are very fine in a normal situation and help prevent mistakes, but extraordinary times require extraordinary measures.
You don't need to be "really sure" that your vaccine is good, you just need it to be better than the status quo. If we can identify one strain that is indeed less deadly than the average of the virus, it's good enough. You sure are going to kill people, but in a crisis mode, if that allows you to save more, it should be a tradeoff we are willing to make.
"Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make" - Lord Farquaad, Shrek (2001)
Regardless of the ethical dilemma, it's a politically untenable position. Vaccine-derived poliovirus [1] affected less than 800 people, compared to 6.5 million if vaccination was not pursued. [2] However, even such few cases were exploited by false teachers (anti-vax, religious groups) to oppose the vaccination efforts entirely. [3] China's economy is recovering already. Although the economic consequences of the lockdown are serious, it's not worth jeopardising trust in public health authorities.
If you give people a vaccine that doesn't work, or worse a vaccine that does more harm than good (or appears that way), then you explode the anti-vax movement into the rule rather than the exception.
No subsequent vaccine, even an effective one, would be tolerated.
You're basically proposing a form of vaccination. Essentially everyone knows that a vaccine would be the way out of this mess. There's loads of research on Vaccines for Covid-19 right now. Your idea isn't exceptionally surprising, as you write yourself it's close to how some of the early vaccines worked.
I am reasonably convinced researchers into vaccines right now turn every stone to look for possible ways to make a vaccine as fast as possible. They probably got the idea already and if it's a feasible path someone is working on it.
That said making a vaccine still faces some basic challenges that every medicine faces: You want to be pretty sure that a) it works and b) it has no massive surprising sideeffects. Given that you want to give it to potentially almost everyone on the planet, you want to be really sure.