US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that a coronavirus vaccine could be available within a month, an acceleration even from his own optimistic predictions, but added that the pandemic could go away on its own.
“We are very close to having a vaccine,” he said in a city hall question and answer session with Pennsylvania voters broadcast on ABC News.
“We’re just weeks away from getting it, you know, it could be three or four weeks,” he said.
Just hours earlier, speaking to Fox News, Trump had said a vaccine could arrive in “four weeks, it could be eight weeks.”
Democrats have raised concerns that Trump is putting political pressure on government health regulators and scientists to pass a rushed vaccine in time to help reverse his uphill re-election campaign against challenger Joe Biden on Nov. 3. .
Experts, including the US government’s top infectious disease physician, Anthony Fauci, say the vaccine is more likely to be approved by the end of the year.
At ABC town hall, Trump was asked why he had downplayed the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has now killed nearly 200,000 people in the United States.
Trump responded by saying, “I didn’t downplay it. In fact, in many ways, I took advantage of it in terms of action. “
But Trump himself told journalist Bob Woodward during taped interviews for the new book “Rage,” published Tuesday, that he had deliberately chosen to “downplay” it to avoid alarming Americans.
– ‘Popular mentality’ –
Returning to one of his most controversial views on the virus, which has devastated the economy and which government scientists say will remain a danger for some time, Trump insisted it “is going to go away.”
“It would go away without the vaccine, but it will go away much faster with it,” he said.
When asked how the virus would go away on its own, he said that “you will develop a herd mentality,” apparently referring to the concept of herd immunity, when enough people have developed resistance to the disease to effectively stop transmission.
“It is going to develop as a herd and that is going to happen. All of that will happen, but with a vaccine, I think it will go away very quickly. But I really believe that we are just around the corner, ”he said.
The president, who is rarely seen wearing a mask in public and has long refused to pressure Americans to adopt the habit, said that “a lot of people don’t want to wear masks and people don’t think masks are good”.
When asked who he was referring to, Trump replied, “Waiters.”
“They come and serve you and have a mask,” he said. “I saw it the other day when they were treating me and they were playing with the mask. I do not blame them. I’m just saying what happens: they are playing with the mask. So the mask is over, and they’re touching it, and then they’re touching the plate, and that can’t be good. “
Polls show that a majority of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the health crisis.
The Latest NBC News Poll | SurveyMonkey Weekly Tracking on Tuesday found that 52 percent of adults do not trust Trump’s statements about an upcoming coronavirus vaccine, compared with 26 percent who do.
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