President Trump predicted there would be a vaccine for the coronavirus within a matter of months.
“We are very confident that we’re going to have a vaccine at the end of the year, by the end of the year,” Trump told Fox News during a town hall on Sunday. “We think we’re going to have a vaccine by the end of this year, and we’re pushing very hard.”
Trump’s prediction was more optimistic than health officials, who have said the process would likely take at least a year to 18 months. Moving faster than usual on vaccine development would require human trials earlier in the process, which Trump said he had no concerns about.
“Are you concerned about the ethics or the risk of that in that push?” Fox News’s Martha MacCallum asked.
“No, because they are volunteers. They know what they’re getting into,” he said, adding that he does care if another country develops the vaccine before the United States.
“I just want to get a vaccine that works,” he said. “If it’s another country, I’ll take my hat off to them.”
There are 70 coronavirus vaccines in development across the globe, with three being tested in human trials, the World Health Organization said last month. The furthest along in the process was developed by Hong Kong-based CanSino Biologics and the Beijing Institute of Technology. The other two were developed by U.S. drugmakers Moderna and Inovio Pharmaceuticals, according to the WHO.
