In a year that has brought Americans heartache, difficult losses, and unimaginable pain…spirits are now beginning to rise as people are becoming more hopeful that a COVID-19 vaccine will be approved by the end of 2020.
Multiple candidate vaccines are beginning the late-stage trial testing before pursuing government approval in hopes of bringing an end to the global pandemic. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States’ top infectious disease expert, believes that within the next couple of months experts will know whether a vaccine will be safe and available.
“We will know whether a vaccine is safe and effective by the end of November, the beginning of December,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said in a BBC interview with Andrew Marr Show on Sunday. “The amount of doses that will be available in December will not certainly be enough to vaccinate everybody”.
“The question is: Once you have a safe and effective vaccine, or more than one, how can you get it to the people who need it as quickly as possible?”
If and when a potential vaccine is ready, it will be given out according to a set prioritization, says Dr.Fauci. This means that health care workers and individuals in a high-risk category will most likely receive the first doses, with more to be widely available “several months into 2021”.
“What I do foresee is that with a successful vaccine and the continuation of some form of public health measures, as we go and progress through the months of 2021, getting towards the third and fourth quarter, we will see a considerable approach towards some form of normality,” Fauci told Marr.
When asked about his thoughts on Donald Trump’s statement regarding America “rounding the corner” in the course of the pandemic, Dr.Fauci says he feels that it is untrue.
“The data speak for themselves,” he said. “Unfortunately, I am sorry to see what I’m viewing from a distance, what I’m seeing in the UK … after getting hit pretty badly the way we did, you went down to a pretty low level, but now you’re starting to escalate in the same manner that we are here.”
