Trump Says He’s ‘Very Confident’ We’ll Have a Coronavirus Vaccine ‘By the End of the Year’
On Sunday, President Donald Trump said he was “very confident” that a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, Covid-19, would be successfully developed “by the end of the year.”
Trump made the comment during a town hall hosted by Fox News’ Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, which featured viewer-submitted video questions instead of a live audience due to social distancing recommendations.
Baier and MacCallum began the program by mentioning some sobering numbers: over 1.1 million confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S., over 67,000 deaths, and over 30 million unemployment cases filed in the past six weeks.
Trump’s remarks about a vaccine came in response to a question from Danny Lamos, a 39-year-old from Grand Island, Nebraska, who recently recovered from Covid-19, despite an initially poor prognosis.
Lamos asked Trump about what was being done to ensure adequate supplies of remdesivir, an antiviral drug recently approved by the FDA to treat coronavirus under an Emergency Use Authorization and which was part of his treatment plan.
Trump never answered Lamos’ question directly, despite several follow up attempts from MacCallum and Baier, instead repeating several times that it was “a very hard drug to make,” but they were “pushing very hard on remdesivir.”
He then segued into talking about vaccines.
“We’re also pushing something else, the vaccines,” said Trump. “We are very confident that we’re going to have a vaccine at the end of the year, by the end of the year, have a vaccine.”
“By the end of this year,” echoed Baier.
“We think we’ll have a vaccine by the end of this year, and we’re pushing very hard,” continued Trump.
“You know, we’re building supply lines, we don’t even have the final vaccine. Johnson & Johnson, if you look at Johnson & Johnson is doing it. We have many companies — are I think close, because I meet with the heads of them and I find it a very interesting subject. Because it’s so important. But I think we’ll have a vaccine by the end of the year. We’re also pushing it. We’re doing things at the FDA that’s never happened before.”
Watch the above clip, via Fox News.
