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WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump said on Monday (September 7) that a coronavirus vaccine could be ready in October, vowing it would be “very safe and very effective.”
This is a promise that Trump has repeatedly made.
But the American public remains deeply skeptical of the claim, and many voters are wary of a vaccine that will be rushed and made available this year, according to recent polls.
Concerns that development of a coronavirus vaccine in the United States will accelerate ahead of the November presidential election are clouding its imminent arrival, and the White House is adding to the confusion by sending mixed messages about when a vaccine will be available.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called on governors late last month (August 27) to be prepared for the distribution of a Covid-19 vaccine to healthcare workers and high-priority groups beginning on November 1, two days before Election Day.
The schedule has raised concerns that a vaccine will be rushed to increase Trump’s chances of reelection.
There is a general consensus among public health experts and even top health officials that an October vaccine would be highly unlikely.
US Surgeon General Jerome Adams said last week (September 4) that the November 1 deadline was a “just in case” scenario, adding that it was “possible, but not likely” that a vaccine was ready early.
Currently, three vaccine developers are in the third and final phase of trials, which involves large-scale tests on tens of thousands of people in safety and efficacy studies that typically take months to complete.
But the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the authority to terminate phase three trials early and authorize a vaccine if the trial results are overwhelmingly positive.
FDA chief Stephen Hahn told the Financial Times on August 30 that he was willing to circumvent the normal approval process in this way, though he emphasized that the decision would be based on science, medicine and data, and not in politics.
Public health experts urge caution. In a Sept. 3 essay in Foreign Policy magazine, pandemic expert Laurie Garrett wrote that she was not confident that a safe and effective vaccine would be ready for use on Halloween.
“The pace required here is staggering, dramatically faster than any previous drug or vaccine launch in history. While officials insist no corners are being cut, the timeline is simply too short for a full safety analysis of any vaccine. “, said.
Garrett argued that drug manufacturers could not guarantee the safety of their vaccine for October, as complications might not show up in a rapid sample of healthy adults.
“This is the reason why vaccine clinical trials typically last several months and involve many more volunteers than have been recruited for the Covid-19 product,” he wrote.
Drug makers are reportedly signing a pledge not to prematurely seek government approval for vaccines until they have met rigorous standards for safety and efficacy.
But the Americans remain cautious.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Sunday she would not just take Trump’s word for it on the reliability of a vaccine.
“I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump and that he would have to be a credible source of information that speaks about the effectiveness and reliability of whatever he is talking about,” he told CNN in an interview, comments that Trump later criticized. as “anti-vaccine rhetoric.”
A CBS-YouGov poll conducted Sept. 2-4 found that skepticism about developing a safe vaccine this year had deepened in recent weeks.
Two-thirds of voters say that if a vaccine were announced this year, their first thought would be that it was rushed, rather than seeing it as a scientific achievement. This attitude was more pronounced among Democrats and independent voters compared to Republicans.
Additionally, 21 percent of voters say they would receive a vaccine as soon as possible if it were available this year at no cost, up from 32 percent at the end of July.
University of Texas at Austin political psychologist Bethany Albertson, who studies political attitudes, said that whether people believed a vaccine would be given this year depended heavily on voters’ partisan affiliations.
Dr. Albertson said, “That is a message that will resonate and reassure Republican voters. I don’t expect it to be a message that reassures Democrats.
“I think Democrats would really have to see it happen, and the scope of that project seems way beyond Election Day.”
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