Corollarium

Source.  Doctors are already prescribing hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin to potentially help severely ill COVID-19 patients. Matter of fact, the FDA has already approved hydroxychloroquine for emergency use for these patients. The reason why this drug is good for COVID-19 is because it provides the ability to inhibit immune response. That's important, because COVID-19 causes acute respiratory distress syndrome or ARDS, because a patient's immune response is severe against the lungs. That causes the air sacs or alveolus of the lungs to flood with fluid and it becomes hard for oxygen to be delivered to red blood cells. Another belief is that hydroxychloroquine also inhibits viral replication as well. Azithromycin is believed to help with pneumonia.

As far as potential treatments in development, I believe that Gilead's remdesivir may potentially offer some therapeutic benefit. That's because this drug is a nucleotide analog which blocks a particular enzyme that is required for viral replication. Hydroxychloroquine has already been approved by the FDA for emergency use. Remdesivir may also get the greenlight for use, should several studies to be reported in the coming weeks turn out with positive data. As far as vaccines go, it will be roughly 12 to 18 months. That's because it will take time to randomize several hundred patients and then test safety and efficacy. Especially, if you want to make sure that there are no long-term negative side effects. Plus, you have to be able to produce millions of doses, which may take some time to ramp up. As far as profitability may go, it is likely that a good amount of revenue will be made, but that depends where it is priced at. In addition, it depends on the seasonality of this virus also.

Corollarium: We have a maximum of six month till something is found. The only problem I see is that the companies will emerge with much debt, that may lead to inflation. Dollar inflation.