This article aims to address three very important issues related to the new Coronavirus pandemic: the first concerns the conditions required for the resumption or reopening of economic activity; the second, concerns the chances of obtaining an effective vaccine to immunize the population of the virus, and the third, is related to the possibility or not of the pandemic becoming endemic. These last two issues are important because they condition the recovery of the economy. Therefore, this article seeks to answer the following questions: 1) Under what conditions should economic activities be resumed ?; 2) Is it possible to reopen the economy without a vaccine?; 3) Is it possible to obtain an effective vaccine to immunize the entire world population? 4) Will the new Coronavirus be endemic? To search for answers to these questions, some recent publications were analyzed, the details of which are presented in this article.

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THE CONDITIONS REQUIRED FOR THE RETURN OF ECONOMIC
ACTIVITY WITH THE NEW CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to address three very important issues related to the new Coronavirus
pandemic: the first concerns the conditions required for the resumption or reopening of
economic activity; the second, concerns the chances of obtaining an effective vaccine to
immunize the population of the virus, and the third, is related to the possibility or not of
the pandemic becoming endemic. These last two issues are important because they
condition the recovery of the economy. Therefore, this article seeks to answer the
following questions: 1) Under what conditions should economic activities be resumed ?;
2) Is it possible to reopen the economy without a vaccine?; 3) Is it possible to obtain an
effective vaccine to immunize the entire world population? 4) Will the new Coronavirus
be endemic? To search for answers to these questions, some recent publications were
analyzed, the details of which are presented in the following paragraphs.
Governments around the world are struggling with the question of how to reopen their
economies while the virus still exists, which has infected nearly 4.3 million people
worldwide and left more than 291,000 dead. The conflict that is established in Brazil
between the priority to be given to the resumption of the economy defended by the
Bolsonaro government and the priority to be given to fighting the new Coronavirus
defended by scientists and most state governors is also taking place in the United States
with President Trump defending the resumption of the economy without the pandemic
having been overcome in opposition to the view of scientists who consider it premature.
The newspaper El País published an article under the title Epidemiologista da Casa
Branca se distancia de Trump e alerta Senado contra reabertura prematura nos Estados
Unidos (White House Epidemiologist distances himself from Trump and warns the Senate
against premature reopening in the United States), available on the website
<https://brasil.elpais.com/internacional/2020-05-13/epidemiologista-da-casa-branca-se-
distancia-de-trump-e-alerta-senado-contra-reabertura-prematura-nos-
eua.html#?sma=newsletter_brasil_diaria20200514>.
Chief United States epidemiologist Anthony Fauci said in his testimony to the Senate
Health Commission that a premature resumption of the economy will cause unnecessary
suffering and death in the country. A premature resumption in the economy could have
"very serious consequences" and that the death toll in the country will "almost certainly"
be greater than the more than 88,000 recorded so far. The pandemic, the scientist
emphasized, is not completely under control. If some areas, cities, states skip steps and
reopen prematurely without being able to respond effectively and efficiently to the
disease, their concern is that we will begin to see small peaks that can turn into outbreaks,
said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since
1984, to senators. In reality, according to him, paradoxically, this will lead to a delay that
will not only cause suffering and deaths that could be avoided, but could also mean a
delay in the economic recovery.
Fauci's speech took place at a hearing to assess the U.S. government's response to Covid-
19 which further exposed the disagreements between the scientific guidelines for a
gradual, cautious and controlled economic resumption and the rapid resumption
advocated by President Donald Trump, who said the country had beaten Covid-19 and
that it was time to get back to normal. Contradicting Trump, the director of the Center for
Disease Prevention and Control, Robert Redfield, said in his Senate testimony that the

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United States is not yet out of danger. Of the 50 American states, 35 have already initiated
or announced the easing of restrictions. Most of them, however, have been doing without
respecting the non-binding guidelines of federal medical authorities. In reality, most of
the governors who announced the partial resumption of activities were dealing with an
increase in cases of people infected with the disease. Asked about the possibility of having
a vaccine ready by autumn, Fauci said that this is a very distant possibility. Most of the
medical community agrees that the production of one or more vaccines against the new
Coronavirus is essential for a complete return to normality. In other words, the recovery
of the American economy should only happen when the vaccine is available.
On the availability of vaccine against the new Coronavirus, the European Medicines
Agency (EMA) informs that it will only be possible in about a year. This information can
be found on the website
<https://g1.globo.com/bemestar/vacina/noticia/2020/05/14/vacina-sera-possivel-em-
cerca-de-um-ano-diz-agencia-europeia.ghtml>. The European Medicines Agency rules
out the possibility of skipping the third phase of a vaccine test, which he said would be
needed to ensure that a vaccine was safe and effective. A vaccine against the new
Coronavirus must be approved in about a year in an optimistic scenario, informs the
agency that approves medicines for the European Union. The European Medicines
Agency, in a statement to 33 developers, said it was doing its best to speed up the approval
process. It does not guarantee that any vaccine could be ready in September. For vaccines,
it may be available in 2021. The EMA is also looking at 115 different treatments for the
new Coronavirus, which has killed nearly 300,000 people worldwide, according to data
from the World Health Organization. It reports that some of these therapies could be
approved in Europe this summer, but did not specify which.
As a result, the resumption of the United States economy should only happen from 2021
if the vaccine is available. WHO emergency specialist Mike Ryan reports that more than
100 possible vaccines are being developed, including several in clinical trials, but experts
have highlighted the difficulties in finding effective vaccines against the new
Coronavirus. This information was presented in the article OMS diz que novo
Coronavírus pode se tornar endêmico (WHO says a new Coronavirus may become
endemic) published on 05/14/2020 by Emma Farge and Michael Shields, Reuters
reporters, available on the website
<https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/internacional/noticia/2020-05/oms-diz-que-
coronavirus-pode-se-tornar-endemico>. In this article, there is information that the new
Coronavirus, which causes covid-19 respiratory disease, may become endemic like the
human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), said the World Health Organization (WHO), who
warned about the difficulty of predict how long the virus will continue to circulate and
called for a "huge effort" to fight it.
According to WHO, this virus can become endemic in our communities and never
disappear, reports WHO emergency specialist Mike Ryan. He said that he thinks it is
important to be realistic and that he does not believe that anyone can predict when this
disease will disappear. This disease can establish itself as a long-term problem or not.
Ryan recalled that it takes enormous effort, even if a vaccine is discovered. More than
100 possible vaccines are being developed, including several in clinical trials, but experts
have highlighted the difficulties in finding effective vaccines against the new
Coronavirus. Ryan noted that vaccines exist for other diseases, such as measles, that have
not been eliminated. Ryan said very significant control of the virus is needed to decrease
its risk, which he said remains high at national, regional and global levels.

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It can be concluded from the above that, it is a huge risk to resume economic activity,
except the essential ones, in any country without the existence of a vaccine because it will
cause unnecessary suffering and death, there is no guarantee that the vaccines that will be
developed will be effective in combating the new Coronavirus and that there is no
guarantee that the new Coronavirus will not become an endemic disease such as measles
and AIDS. It is necessary to establish the understanding that it will take some time to get
out of this pandemic. Countries have to resume economic activities, therefore, with the
necessary caution to prevent further outbreaks and the dizzying growth of deaths from
the new Coronavirus. The health of the population must be considered a priority and not
the resumption of economic activity. Therefore, there is a risk of increasing the number
of deaths with the premature resumption of the economy as presidents Trump in the
United States and Bolsonaro in Brazil want.
With the spread of the new Coronavirus, governments must act with the objective of
minimizing the number of infected and killed by the virus and avoiding the collapse of
the health system by adopting total social isolation of the population, maintaining
essential economic activities and adopting measures for the benefit of the unemployed
and the poor to avoid starvation and micro, small and medium-sized enterprises to avoid
succumbing to the crisis. These are indispensable measures to be adopted during the
advancement of Coronavirus. Once the Coronavirus was overcome with the appearance
of a vaccine, the reconstruction or uplift of the economic system would come with the
adoption of the following measures:
• Construction of a large number of public works, with emphasis on economic (energy,
transport and communications) and social (education, health, housing and basic
sanitation) infrastructure;
• Government grant of tax facilities and low interest rates for companies to invest again;
• Development of the social and solidarity economy to combat unemployment by
generating work and income, in various sectors, whether in community banks, credit
unions, family farming cooperatives, in the matter of fair trade, exchange clubs, etc;
• Government grant of basic or universal income to the population, especially the most
vulnerable.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 80, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System,
member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional
Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of
strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is author of the
books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem
Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os
condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de
Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora
Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos
na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social
Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG,
Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica,
Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate
ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores
Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no
Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba,
2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV,
Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua
convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018, em co-autoria) and Como inventar o futuro
para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).