IDK if this should be in the politics section. I don't think the search for a vaccine/cure/solution to the COVID-19 problem should be about politics as much as it is about saving human lives (even if the lethality of the virus, not to mention what's been proposed as being "effective" in "protecting" against the virus has seen so many changes, with so many people in the government and organizations making statements that contradict each other to where it's hard to get a clear cut picture of what the actual truth is) and preventing inf
https://www.foxnews.com/health/university-pittsburgh-antibody-neutralizes-coronavirus
https://www.upmc.com/media/news/091420-mellors-dimitrov-covid-ab8
So, I just happened upon the Fox News article, and then looked up the article below it, and if I am to understand this correctly, wouldn't this be better than a vaccine, what with no side effects or anything? Granted, the second article adds some more context and clarity that the Fox News one doesn't. But I have to admit, compared to all of the other articles where you have AstraZeneca (and other Linux distro-soundalike names for companies) and a few others are still in, like, phase 3 of testing, and here we have something that may not have to worry about the complications of using vaccines.
Antibodies have been used since the start really -- those tested positive and survived then having blood draws, cell separation and injection into patients to help boost their chances.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/03/plasma-blood-covid-19-survivors/609007/
As far as side effects of vaccines then if done properly that usually amounts to redness at injection site and maybe you feeling a bit unpleasant for a day or two as your body thinks it is fighting an infection (sapping energy, raising temperature to try to kill the invader) but is actually fighting the harmless practice dummy provided by the vaccine. You get some population as a whole ones as some incompetent medic somewhere snaps a needle off in someone or something and adds to a stat, but it is not like pumping you full of IV meds, possibly intubating if they did not catch it fast enough, is less prone to fun side effects.
Antibody treatments are a great thing to have in the arsenal but the trouble is growing them (we can make millions of flu shots each year with eggs really, probably something similar here. Antibodies on industrial scale are harder) and there is also the phrase "prevention is better than a cure" for a reason -- you have to catch it in time (not so bad for otherwise healthy, those with crap lungs, diabetes, AIDS, cancer or the like tend to have a shorter time, not to mention damage can still be done in short order if you are unlucky*), catch all other infected that got spread, hope that the one that got it is not immunocompromised or otherwise troubled, and not to mention pay for it (antibody treatments tend to be inpatient, and possibly isolated room, where vaccines might be an alcohol swab and a needle plus the juice itself (rarely more than a few hundred dollars,
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/vfc/awardees/vaccine-management/price-list/index.html , usually orders of magnitude less and you would presumably have massive economies of scale here if doing population wide and maybe a bit of funding for it, to say nothing of not everybody living within a quick ride to a fully stocked hospital, a medic with some alcohol swabs and a case full of single use syringes is a far easier thing to fund and deploy).
If you can avoid having it in your population you also avoid having new strains potentially evolve; any virus can evolve, indeed the whole jump from species to species usually being the result of just that, and while I have not seen much on how prone this one is (what I saw said not as much as something like cold and aids) but more cases = more chances for that one. Said evolution does not have to mean same symptoms either and just another vaccine needed but can be worse (without comorbidities it is what fractional percentage now?), or be better at spreading (longer incubation period, longer infection period, promotes sneezing better, better able to survive outside a host... as it stands the people infected per single host is respectable but far from as fun as some of the other things out there).
*we don't know the long term effects either (we are coming up on maybe a year since the first, and that is going to be in China most likely so good luck getting info there). For instance polio sufferers often were seen to get some specific sorts of cancers later in life and a bunch of other unpleasant symptoms at times
https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/polio-and-post-polio-syndrome
Short version. If it works another tool in the arsenal but far from a magic bullet to sort all the woes.
