- Anthony Fauci said Tuesday that the United States could reach a point where people no longer have to worry about the coronavirus “within the next year to a year and a half.”
- Fauci said his cautious optimism stems from the vaccine’s successful development so far, which could ultimately lead to herd immunity.
- Moderna has just published promising results from the first human trials of its first-line vaccine candidate.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
The terror of the coronavirus pandemic could end within the next year if development of the vaccine continues well, according to Anthony Fauci, the U.S.’s leading infectious disease expert.
Even as the US COVID-19 case count continues to rise sharply, efforts to develop a vaccine are “in a pretty good place,” Fauci said Tuesday in a live broadcast hosted by Georgetown University.
“No vaccine is going to be 100% protective. What we hope is that, with the combination of people who have already been exposed and a vaccine that is between 70-75% protective, there will be enough group immunity for there to be a time in that you and I don’t have to worry about getting infected with this horrible virus, “said Fauci. “And we hope that time is reasonably soon … within the next year to a year and a half.”
He added that he was “cautiously quite optimistic.”
Fauci has chaired the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984. His recent comments came shortly after Moderna published the results of the company’s first human trial of its coronavirus vaccine. Among 45 healthy volunteers, according to the findings, the vaccine boosted immune responses that could protect people from the virus.
A subject receives an injection in the clinical trial of the first-stage safety study of a possible vaccine made by Moderna for COVID-19, March 16, 2020.
Associated Press
A study of 30,000 people will begin in about two weeks to determine if the vaccine actually prevents infection. It is about to be the first late-stage trial to begin in the United States.
There are now more than 150 other coronavirus vaccine research programs, with 21 potential immunizations in human tests.
“If things work as we hope, I think by the end of this year and the beginning of the 2021 calendar year, we will have enough information to know whether [vaccine] the candidates we are dealing with are safe and effective, “said Fauci.
For now, however, the coronavirus is still on the rise. Case counts are growing in 39 states and Washington, DC, according to an analysis by The New York Times.
“It is a serious situation in the United States,” said Fauci. “It is a mixed situation. Some areas of the country are doing really well and others are being challenged.”
Furthermore, the nature of coronavirus immunity is still shrouded in uncertainty. A growing body of research suggests that antibodies to the virus may drop rapidly in the months after a person recovers.
“If he was infected, I can safely say he has immunity,” Fauci said. “What I can’t say is how long that immunity will last. I hope it lasts for a substantial period of time, but we don’t know.”
