Fauci Predicts Possible Coronavirus Vaccine by End of 2020; Two Months Later than Trump

A vaccine for the coronavirus could become available by the end of 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday.

“Right now, there are six or seven candidates the U.S. government is helping to facilitate, either by developing with them or by pre-purchasing of doses or allowing our clinical trial network to be available to them,” Fauci said in a virtual interview with PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff. “Three of those candidates are already in phase-three trials, which means you’re going to enroll tens of thousands of volunteers to determine if it’s safe and effective.”

Fauci pointed out that trials for two of those three vaccines — developed by Moderna and Pfizer — began on July 27, and that enrollment in the trials would be complete by the end of September. “Then you add another month, month and a half to get that second dose,” he said. “So that’s the reason why I have been projecting … that by the end of the year, November, December, we will know whether we have a safe and effective vaccine.”

President Donald Trump suggested he was hoping to see a vaccine rolled out before the Nov. 3 election. “We could have a vaccine soon, maybe even before a very special day. You know what day I’m talking about,” he said at a Monday press conference.

The Centers for Disease Control has asked state officials to prepare to distribute a vaccine as early as November 1, while Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn has said he is open to bypassing the federal approval process to make a vaccine available.

“The idea that we’re going to have a vaccine by November 3rd — how realistic?” Woodruff asked.

“I think that’s unlikely,” Fauci replied. “I mean, the whole way you can see that scenario come true is if there are so many infections in the clinical trial sites that you get an efficacy answer sooner than you would have projected. Like I said, it’s not impossible … but it’s unlikely that we’ll have a definitive answer at that time. More likely, by the end of the year.”

Watch above via CSPAN.