You have more hope in a vaccine than I do. I suspect this will end up
combined with the yearly influenza vaccine and about as effective. No the fatality rate is not trivial people do die from it but so far what I have seen is on par with H1N1. a retaining nothing to inspire mass panic and economic suicide.
It’s shown itself to be genetically stable so far and the immune system certainly recognizes it and reacts to it, so I haven’t seen evidence suggesting it would present the issues Influenza does. There’s only one strain and it isn’t mutating quickly like Influenza’s various strains do. So long as that continues to be the case, this may be a one-shot fix.
The first vaccine out of the gate might not be amazing in terms of effectiveness, but even a 50% effective vaccine would be wonderful. 50% of the population vaccinated plus ~20% who have been or will be infected by the time the vaccine is deployed puts us right at herd immunity of 70%. And with multiple vaccine candidates in phase 3 clinical trials right now, I have a lot of optimism that at least one will wind up being much better than 50% effective.
My biggest hope is for Moderna’s vaccine; mainly because generation 3 vaccines hold the promise to making the Influenza vaccine vastly more effective by reducing the time necessary to formulate and deliver it. That alone could save tens of thousands of Americans each year.