WASHINGTON, D.C. – Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday that he’s optimistic that the United States will have millions of coronavirus vaccines ready by the end of the year.
“By the beginning of 2021, we hope to have a couple of hundred million doses,” said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
Fauci made the comment during an interview with the American Medical Association and added that there are four or five trials underway for vaccine candidates to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fauci also said Phase III trials for a vaccine candidate developed by Moderna are expected to start in early July and another candidate from AstraZeneca is proceeding on a similar track.
"I'm cautiously optimistic that with the multiple candidates that we have with different platforms, that we're going to have a vaccine that shows a degree of efficacy that would make it deployable," said Fauci.
Fauci’s comments come weeks after the Trump administration launched “Operation Warp Speed,” an initiative to get vaccines to the American public as fast as possible, so the U.S. can return to some kind of normalcy.
The goal of the initiative is to make millions of doses before scientists know which, if any, will really work.
President Donald Trump vowed to use “every plane, truck and soldier” to distribute COVID-19 vaccines and he hopes to begin doing so by the end of 2020.
