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Trump Confident COVID-19 Vaccine Will Be Available by Year's End

Steve Herman

   WHITE HOUSE - U.S. President Donald Trump is saying he is confident
   there will be a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the year, and mass
   inoculations of the public will occur quickly.
   "I think distribution will take place almost simultaneously because
   we've geared up the military," Trump explained on Thursday, adding that
   further details will be released on Friday.
   The president's prediction contrasts with testimony heard on Capitol
   Hill shortly before Trump spoke on the White House South Lawn.
   The ousted director of the federal government's vaccine agency told
   lawmakers, "We don't have a plan" to mass-produce and distribute a
   coronavirus vaccine. Hope for such a vaccine within 12 to 18 months
   assumes "everything goes perfectly," Dr. Rick Bright testified. "We've
   never seen everything go perfectly."
   More than 90 vaccines for the novel coronavirus are in development
   around the world. German company CureVac said Thursday that one of its
   mRNA candidate vaccines has protected animals from the virus at low
   doses. Clinical trials are expected to begin next month.
   Bright was removed as the director of the Biomedical Advance Research
   and Development Authority (BARDA), which is under the Department of
   Health and Human Services, an action that prompted the immunologist to
   file a whistleblower complaint.
   Trump told reporters he watched some of Thursday's testimony by Bright
   and "he looks like an angry, disgruntled employee who, frankly,
   according to some people, didn't do a very good job."

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