Despite Trump Claims, CDC Says Vaccine Won't Be Widely Available Until Late 2021
Andrew SolenderForbes Staff
Business
TOPLINE Top U.S. health officials on Wednesday poured cold water on President Trump’s optimistic timeline for a coronavirus vaccine, stating that while a vaccine may be in limited supply by the end of 2020, it will not be distributed widely enough for a return to normal life until well into 2021.
Senate Appropriations Committee Holds Hearing On Response By HHS To Coroanavirus Pandemic
WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 16: Centers for Disease[+]
GETTY IMAGES
KEY FACTS
In nearly every one of his public appearances in recent weeks, Trump has said a vaccine will be available before election day and framed vaccine approval as tantamount to distribution, telling supporters during a North Carolina tele-rally earlier this month, “It’ll be delivered, the vaccine, before the end of the year and frankly, maybe even during the month of October.”
Trump has also argued that vaccine approval would mark the beginning of the end of the pandemic, stating at a rally in Nevada on Sunday that, thanks to speedy vaccine development, “We’ll be ready before the end of the year and we will very easily defeat the China virus” and “we’re making that round beautiful last turn” in the pandemic.
But Paul Mango, the deputy chief of staff at the Department of Health and Human Services, told Bloomberg that the U.S. would have the capacity to vaccinate every American by April 2021, but that only 20 million doses would be ready if a vaccine were approved in October.
Redfield offered a grimmer timeline, telling the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that a vaccine would be in “very limited supply” and would have to be “prioritized” if approved between October and December, and estimated it would be “generally available” to the public by “late second quarter, third quarter 2021.”
Redfield also played down the importance of a vaccine – something Trump has framed as marking the end of the pandemic – in relation to masks, arguing that masks are “the most important, powerful public health tool we have,” and even going so far as to say they are “more guaranteed to protect me against COVID” than a vaccine.
Forbes has reached out to the White House for comment.
CRUCIAL QUOTE
“Taking this at face value it means we aren’t even halfway through the pandemic,” Washington Post data reporter Christopher Ingraham said of Redfield’s comments on when a vaccine would be available.
CHIEF CRITIC
Democratic politicians have expressed concern about the vaccine approval process, alleging Trump’s desire for a speedy end to the pandemic has led him to impose political pressure on the process. “I would be hesitant, but I’m going to ask a lot of questions,” Cal Cunningham, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in North Carolina, said of taking a vaccine at a debate on Monday. “I think that is incumbent on all of us right now, in this environment, with the way we’ve seen politics intervening in Washington.”
BIG NUMBER
44%. That’s the percent of American adults who said in an NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll in August that they would take a coronavirus vaccine approved by the government. As much as 22% said they would not take one, while 33% said they were unsure.
