(CNN) — The leading infectious disease expert in U.SDr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday that life could return to normal sometime next year with sufficient production of vaccine against coronavirus.
Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, told CNN’s David Axelrod on the podcast “The Ax Files” that the companies behind possible vaccines told him “they would have billions of doses earlier this year. , and up to hundreds of millions as we go into 2021, and some companies say that even after a while, there could be as many as 1 billion doses. ”
“The calendar you suggested for reaching 2021, well into the year … so I can think that with a successful vaccine, if we could vaccinate the vast majority of the population, we could start talking about real normalcy again,” added Fauci. “But it is going to be a gradual process.”
Fauci’s comments come as the United States surpassed the 4 million officially registered covid-19 cases on Thursday, with a quarter of that count in the past 15 days, and the accelerated search for a vaccine continues.
Preliminary results from a phase 1/2 trial, closely watched and published Monday in The Lancet, suggest that a coronavirus vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca is safe and induces an immune response. However, the researchers emphasized that more studies are needed to find out if the vaccine protects people against the virus.
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AstraZeneca said in a hearing in the United States Congress on Tuesday that he is on track to have a possible vaccine ready as early as September. But hours later, the head of the vaccine working group of the UK He cautioned that a vaccine is unlikely to be widely available before 2021. Meanwhile, other company executives said they were targeting in early 2021.
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Defense announced an agreement Wednesday with Pfizer Inc. for “large-scale production and nationwide delivery of 100 million doses of a covid-19 vaccine in the United States ”after it has been successfully developed and approved.
If the vaccine is successful and receives authorization or emergency use license, nationwide delivery would begin in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to HHS. The doses would be shipped to locations at the direction of the US government and would be available to Americans at no cost, according to a statement.
Fauci also stressed Thursday that he has “a very good relationship” with the president. Donald Trump, despite their contradictory positions on numerous elements of the coronavirus response.
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“I am doing my best to stay completely out of the politics. But when you are in a politically charged situation, it is a little difficult not to be completely affected, ”he said. “I stay away from any personal political involvement, but I try to do my job. But I am aware of the tension. ”
Fauci continued: “The only interesting thing that I think people don’t appreciate is that I have a very good relationship with the president, in the sense that I don’t have animosity. In fact, it’s a pretty good relationship. “
Its assessment comes after CNN previously reported that in early June, Trump and Fauci had stopped meeting in person. Earlier this month, the White House made a concerted effort to discredit Fauci as he became increasingly vocal about his concerns about reopening the country amid a national surge in coronavirus cases. A White House official told CNN that “several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci was wrong about things,” and then provided a long list of examples, citing Fauci’s comments. early in the pandemic and relating to past interviews.
Additionally, senior White House trade official Peter Navarro apparently broke protocol by publishing an op-ed that smashed Fauci last week, with the White House working to distance itself from the piece, which contained views similar to those views expressed by Trump himself and distributed by the White House over the previous weekend.
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Fauci referred to the efforts of the White House to belittle him, saying that “it is not right. I think they are really bad news do that ”, but affirmed his confidence that Trump himself did not support them.
When Axelrod asked if he had told the President, Fauci replied: “I think it is pretty clear in the White House that this is the situation. I do not think that in some respects the President is not happy about that either. I can tell you that personally he is not happy with that. ”
CNN’s Naomi Thomas, Kristen Holmes, Kaitlan Collins, Kevin Liptak, Becky Anderson, Anna Gorzkowska and Mohammed Al-Saiegh contributed to this report.
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