In an unusual venture, US President Donald Trump was promising Americans a wide availability of coronavirus vaccines much faster than his own health authority. When asked when anyone in the US could get access to a vaccination, Trump said on Wednesday, “I think it will be very soon.” One of his medical advisers, radiologist Scott Atlas, provided 700 million available vaccine doses. Ahead of late March.
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The head of the US health authority CDC, which is responsible for the delivery of vaccines, had previously named the middle of next year as the time horizon. “If you ask me when this will be generally available to the American people so that we can use vaccination and get back to our normal lives, I think we are looking forward to the late second or third quarter of 2021,” said Robert Redfield at a Senate hearing. He was under oath.
“I think he probably got the question wrong,” Trump said at a White House press conference about Redfield’s words. “I think he was confused.” The vaccination will be spread much faster. “Maybe he doesn’t know about the distribution process.”
Well-known immunologist Anthony Fauci confirmed in a live interview with the Wall Street Journal moments later that he did not expect a return to normalcy until mid to late next year through a wide-ranging vaccination campaign. Many people from particularly vulnerable groups are likely to be vaccinated as early as early 2021. “But the idea that you can vaccinate the entire population that wants to be vaccinated in a month or two – that’s going to be very, very difficult,” Fauci said.
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At the same time, he said there was still no assurance that there would be an efficient and safe vaccine – even if he was “cautiously optimistic”. Fauci had said last week that he expected a corona vaccine to be 70 to 75 percent effective.
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| When Will The US Corona Vaccine Come ?: Trump Denigrates US Health Authority Head As “Confused” – Politics |
Redfield also said in the Senate that masks are currently the “main tool” in the fight against the pandemic. He would go so far as to say that a mask offers more protection against the coronavirus than a vaccination, the CDC chief said.
Trump also disagreed. “No, a vaccine is much more efficient than the masks,” Trump said. He called Redfield and told him he had answered the question incorrectly from his point of view.
Redfield then published two tweets in which he wrote, among other things, that he believed in the importance of vaccinations – and that the best protection currently is wearing masks, washing hands and keeping your distance. He did not take back any of his earlier statements.
Trump had previously accused employees of his own government of deliberately delaying the development of a corona vaccine. The corona crisis with more than 195,000 dead has become a major topic in the US White House election campaign. Trump had said several times that a vaccine could be approved until the end of October – and thus before the presidential election on November 3. Trump lags behind Democratic challenger Joe Biden in polls. (dpa)
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| When Will The US Corona Vaccine Come ?: Trump Denigrates US Health Authority Head As “Confused” – Politics |
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