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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the vaccine against the deadly coronavirus could take three to four weeks, despite warnings issued by some US public health officials about that schedule. accelerated.
Trump, speaking at a city hall organized by ABC News in Philadelphia, defended his handling of the coronavirus crisis and said a vaccine could be ready for distribution before the US presidential election on November 3.
“We are very close to having a vaccine,” he said. “If you want to know the truth, the previous administration would have taken maybe years to have a vaccine due to the FDA and all the approvals. And we are just weeks away from getting it … It could be three weeks, four weeks.”
Earlier this month, America’s leading infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN that most experts believe the vaccine will be ready by November or December. “It is conceivable that he could have it by October, although I don’t think it is likely.”
Trump was enraged at tough questions from unengaged voters and ABC News host George Stephanopoulos during the town hall meeting, arguing that his decision to impose travel bans on China and Europe had saved thousands, if not millions, of lives.
The United States has reported nearly 6.6 million cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, the highest number in the world, and nearly 195,000 deaths.
Trump repeated a claim he made early in the pandemic that the virus would go away on its own, denying that he underestimated the threat of the disease when asked by an audience member why he would “downplay a pandemic known to harm disproportionately low-income people. ” minority families and communities “.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t downplay it. In fact, in many ways, I took advantage of it in terms of action. My action was very strong,” said the Republican president, who is seeking reelection on November 3. said.
Trump also provoked mockery on Twitter when he spoke of “herd mentality” rather than “herd immunity,” a form of indirect protection against infectious diseases that occurs when enough people have become immune through vaccination or previous infections.
(Reporting by Eric Beech and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Sandra Maler and Christopher Cushing)
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