Anthony Fauci’s comments were part of a conversation with Dr Francis Collins.
Chicago:
If all goes well, the first doses of a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine will likely be available to some high-risk Americans in late December or early January, Dr Anthony Fauci, America’s leading infectious disease expert, said Thursday. .
Based on current projections from vaccine leaders Moderna Inc and Pfizer Inc, Americans will likely know “in December whether or not we have a safe and effective vaccine,” said Fauci, director of the National Allergy Institute and of infectious diseases a live chat on Twitter and Facebook.
“The first interim review (on test results) should be, hopefully, in the next few weeks,” he said.
The two companies entered the final phase of clinical trials at the end of July with tens of thousands of people participating in each trial.
Earlier Thursday, Moderna said he was on track to provide provisional data from his big endgame trial next month.
Pfizer, which was due to announce provisional data in October, is now unlikely to release data until November, possibly after the US presidential election on November 3.
The data will then need to be reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which will make recommendations on who receives the first doses if the trials are successful.
In practice, Fauci said, the first doses of the vaccine would likely be deployed to those individuals deemed most in need “by the end of December or early January.”
Fauci’s comments were part of a conversation with Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, who answered listeners’ questions.
Even with a vaccine effective to protect against the virus, Fauci said it will take time to revert to something near normal as vaccine-induced immunity grows both nationally. and global. He said life is unlikely to return to normal “until the end of 2021 at least”.
In the meantime, Collins has urged Americans to be prepared to continue wearing masks and maintain their social distancing.
“I know Americans are tired of these measures. Tired of wearing masks. Tired of not being able to come together,” Collins said. “But we still have a long way to go.”
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
