As of April 2020 there were no therapies or vaccine for the coronavirus, despite years of warnings about bat-borne coronaviruses.

True: as of 2020-04-18 no approved or proven therapy and no vaccine existed for COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2), and there had been documented scientific warnings over earlier years (for example, after SARS in 2003 and in bat-coronavirus research published from about 2005 to 2019) about the pandemic risk from bat-borne coronaviruses. Mostly true: both points hold in substance but a detail is off, for example drugs were in use under emergency or compassionate-use authorisation without proven benefit. Mixed: one of the two parts (no therapies/vaccine, or years of warnings) holds and the other does not. Mostly false: a proven, approved therapy did exist, or the warnings were far weaker or more obscure than the claim suggests. False: an approved vaccine or proven therapy existed by that date and there were no prior warnings.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Broad anti-coronaviral activity of FDA approved drugs against SARS-CoV-2 in vitro and SARS-CoV in vivo bioRxiv (preprint) · 27 April 2020

   “There are no FDA approved antivirals or vaccines for any coronavirus, including SARS-CoV-2. Current treatments for COVID-19 are limited to supportive therapies and off-label use of FDA approved drugs.”

2. E2 Broad anti-coronaviral activity of FDA approved drugs against SARS-CoV-2 in vitro and SARS-CoV in vivo bioRxiv (preprint) · 27 April 2020

   “Since the emergence of SARS-CoV in 2002, research has uncovered many details of coronavirus biology and pathogenesis, however there are currently no approved therapeutics against this emerging virus family.”

3. E3 A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence - Nature Medicine Nature Medicine · 9 November 2015

   “Our work suggests a potential risk of SARS-CoV re-emergence from viruses currently circulating in bat populations.”

4. E4 A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence - Nature Medicine Nature Medicine · 9 November 2015

   “Evaluation of available SARS-based immune-therapeutic and prophylactic modalities revealed poor efficacy; both monoclonal antibody and vaccine approaches failed to neutralize and protect from infection with CoVs using the novel spike protein.”

A preprint dated nine days after the claim says there were no FDA-approved antivirals or vaccines for any coronavirus, including SARS-CoV-2. It says treatment was limited to supportive care and off-label use of approved drugs, so no approved or proven therapy existed (E1, E2). A 2015 Nature Medicine paper warned of a potential risk of SARS-CoV re-emergence from coronaviruses circulating in bats (E3). It also found that existing SARS-based antibody and vaccine approaches did not protect against the novel bat coronavirus spike (E4). That is a documented warning made years earlier, in a 2015 paper [E3]; with no approved therapy or vaccine reported [E1][E2], though E1 also notes off-label use of approved drugs, both parts of the claim hold in substance under the criteria.