Millions Of Coronavirus Vaccines To Be Available By 2021, Says Dr. Anthony Fauci

Millions of doses of coronavirus vaccines will be available by the start of 2021. In an interview on Wednesday, infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci revealed that Americans should have widespread access to the coronavirus vaccine once any of the current vaccine candidates has been proven safe and effective by the end of the year.

Several coronavirus vaccine candidates are already in late-stage trials. However, it would take long months before the results of the trials come out. In order to save time, Dr. Fauci said the drug makers had agreed to manufacture the large supplies of the vaccines while awaiting the results. Last month, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar also confirmed the U.S. government’s plan to procure hundreds of millions of vaccine doses by early 2021 despite the uncertainties of the ongoing trials.

“The federal government has put more than one egg in the basket,” said Dr. Fauci. “We have a pretty comprehensive portfolio that’s going to subsequently be going into clinical trials,” he added.

The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed more than 700,000 lives since the beginning of the year. Experts say that without a coronavirus vaccine, this number will continue to rise next year.

Dr. Fauci is confident that at least one of the vaccine candidates in late-stage trial today will work. “I’m cautiously optimistic that we will have a vaccine that’s effective enough to get approved,” he said, adding that that will not happen due to any pressure from Donald Trump.

Previous reports claimed that drug makers were pressured to have a coronavirus vaccine available in time for the Nov. 3 presidential election. However, health regulators promised that they would never let political considerations interfere with the need to develop a safe and effective vaccine.

Dr. Fauci’s remark came on the same day Trump said that the virus would just “go away, just like things go away.” According to Dr. Fauci, only an effective coronavirus vaccine can break the vicious cycle of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I hope and feel it’s possible, that by the time we get through 2021 and go around for another cycle that we’ll have this under control,” he said.