President Donald Trump said on Sunday that America will likely develop a vaccine for the coronavirus by the end of 2020.
“We think we will have a vaccine by the end of this year,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News about the fight against the coronavirus.
Trump said that the doctors would probably advise him against predicting a vaccine so soon.
“I’ll say what I think,” he said.
Dr. Fauci cautiously endorsed a similar timeline in an interview last week, asserting that a vaccine could be developed by January of 2021.
The president acknowledged that therapeutic treatments like remdesivir will help treat people in the meantime.
Trump said that remdesivir is a difficult drug to produce quickly but that Gilead Sciences will work speedily to get it to market.
Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day said Sunday in an interview that they will work with the federal government to get medicine to the most vulnerable as soon as next week.
Trump also defended his support for treatments like hydroxychloroquine.
The president said he had three calls in the last few days telling him that hydroxychloroquine cured them of the virus.
“Here’s what we’ve been reduced to in this country. The Democrats, the radical left … would rather see people not get well because they think I’m going to get credit if Hydroxychloroquine works.”
But Trump acknowledged that there would likely be more deaths, despite efforts to fight the spread of the virus.
“I used to say 65,000 [deaths in the U.S.], now I say 80-90,000,” he said.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.