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(Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Wednesday objected to comments by the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who said a coronavirus vaccine could be widely rolled out by mid-2021 and that masks could be even more effective.
Robert Redfield, in testimony before a Congressional committee, said general availability of a vaccine could arrive “by the end of the second quarter, third quarter of 2021.”
Trump, at a press conference, said he believed a vaccine would be released much earlier. He said he called Redfield after his testimony to question him about it, and that Redfield appeared to have been confused by the question.
“I think he made a mistake when he said that,” Trump said of Redfield’s testimony. “I don’t think he means that. When he said it, I think he was confused.”
Trump said a vaccine could be available in a matter of weeks and that there was a plan to begin widely distributing it shortly after the Food and Drug Administration approves it. Trump is eager to advance a vaccine before the November 3 presidential election.
Trump also criticized Redfield for saying that wearing a mask can be as effective as a vaccine. At first, Trump was reluctant to urge Americans to wear masks, but he has been more willing to do so ever since. Still, it has held a series of tight events in which many participants have not covered their faces.
“Number one, it is no more effective than a vaccine and I named it for that,” Trump said.
Trump, reiterating comments he made Tuesday at an ABC News town hall, said that people who wear masks in restaurants can be problematic.
“Masks have problems too,” Trump said. “Masks must be handled very carefully … I see people in restaurants and they are playing with their masks.”
Despite arguing with Redfield, Trump said he retained confidence in his performance at the CDC.
Redfield, who is a member of Trump’s coronavirus task force, said a vaccine could be ready as early as November or December, and that limited first doses could go to the most vulnerable, but that it could take until mid-December. 2021 to be widely available.
“As soon as (a) vaccine is approved or approved, we want to be in a position to distribute it within 24 hours,” Redfield told the US Senate Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations, Education and Allied Agencies. .
But “to get enough of us immunized to have immunity, I think it’s going to take six to nine months,” he added.
Several companies are in the late stages of trials and have expressed optimism, but none of the vaccines have yet been shown to be effective and safe.
The federal government will assign vaccines to each state based on the critical populations recommended first for vaccination by the US CDC.
Testing is also accelerating, and US capacity could reach 3 million a day this month, Admiral Brett Giroir, deputy secretary of health for the US Department of Health and Human Services, said at the same hearing.
The capacity could scale up to 135 million tests per month in October, Giroir added.
(Reported by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru, Carl O’Donnell in New York, Alexandra Alper in Washington; written by Steve Holland; edited by Shinjini Ganguli, Shounak Dasgupta and Maju Samuel)
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