Coronavirus USA: when could a vaccine be ready according to Fauci?
According to researchers at the University of Oklahoma, there are four pharmaceutical entities in phase 3 of Covid-19 vaccine clinical trials.
The United States has over four million confirmed coronavirus cases and since the pandemic started many scientists all over the world have been working on finding a vaccine for the virus. According to Dr Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, there are four pharmaceutical entities that are in stage 3 of clinical trials.
“They would have doses to the tunes of tens of millions early in the year, and up to hundreds of millions as we get well into 2021, and some companies say that even after a while, you could get as many as a billion doses," Fauci told CNN’s David Axelrod on "The Axe Files" podcast.
"The timetable you suggest of getting into 2021, well into the year, then I can think with a successful vaccine, if we could vaccinate the overwhelming majority of the population, we could start talking about real normality again. But it is going to be a gradual process."
According to Dr. William Hildebrand, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Oklahoma's College of Medicine, in efforts that are worldwide, four entities are in phase 3, including pharmaceutical giants AstraZeneca and Moderna. When the vaccine will be available for widespread distribution depends on the company doing the testing and "we don’t know about long-term effects".
Americans are divided on the vaccine
About half of Americans (49%) said they plan to get vaccinated if a Covid-19 vaccine becomes available, while 20% would refuse it and the rest were not sure, according to a recent poll carried out by the Associated Press. Among those who said they wouldn’t get vaccinated, seven in 10 were worried about their safety.