Trump: Coronavirus vaccine will be ready ‘by the end of this year’
US President Donald Trump on Sunday said he was “confident” the United States would have a coronavirus vaccine by the end of this year, as he pushed for the country’s economy to reopen.
“Many companies are I think close,” Trump told a televised town hall at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, broadcast on Fox News, during which he answered voters’ questions submitted online.
“We are very confident that we’re going to have a vaccine at the end of the year,” he said, adding that “we’re pushing very hard.”
Public health officials have said developing a vaccine could take at least a year.
Anthony Fauci, the top US health expert on infectious diseases, on Thursday told broadcaster CNN that a vaccine could be ready by January, but cautioned that “I can’t guarantee it” due to possible setbacks.
German Health Minister Jens Spahn on Sunday called the development of vaccines among “the most challenging” tasks in medicine and said it could “take years.”
The Trump administration has organized a project to rapidly accelerate the development of a coronavirus vaccine, dubbed “Operation Warp Speed.”
The president also said the government is putting its “full power and might” behind remdesivir, an experimental anti-viral drug to treat the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that gained emergency approval on Friday.
The event comes as more than 67,600 people have died due to the virus in the United States, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
The town hall, entitled “America Together: Returning to Work,” also comes as some states loosen coronavirus-related restrictions, while others keep them firmly in place amid a debate over public health risks.
Trump acknowledged that states will go at their own pace, with hard-hit ones taking more time to reopen, but also said others “aren’t going fast enough.”
More than 30 million people in the United States have filed unemployment claims since mid-March after parts of the economy were shut down to stem the spread of the virus.
Congress has already passed trillions of dollars in unprecedented relief in response to the pandemic.
“There’s more help coming, we have really no choice,” Trump said, apparently hinting he wants to see another aid bill passed.
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Lawmakers are discussing additional stimulus, though some of Trump’s advisers have suggested that it may not be necessary.
The president also defended his diatribes against the media in press briefings.
“I am greeted with a hostile press, the likes of which no president has ever seen,” Trump said, adding that “94 or 95 per cent of the press is hostile.”
Trump stopped the daily White House coronavirus briefings after reports that internal polling showed the events, which often lasted up two hours and meandered into numerous topics, were damaging the president. (dpa)
