potentially decades away
potentially decades away
The virus also stay dormant within your cells, and it is not absolutely clear where, yet. Other viruses which do this (chickenpox, herpes, papillomavirus, ...) are not cleared from the body by the immune system either, but at least the immune system can control them as long as it is healthy enough.
This facts, of course, are no reason to be pessimistic about a cure/vaccine, just explains why it is taking that long. A cure might also pad the way to cure other diseases such as chickenpox and herpes, which may lead to complications later in life.
Generally, it's much easier to develop a vaccine for more stable viruses.
We might be able to target some sort of antigen on the virus that's highly conserved even with that mutation rate, but that's a big if.