US President Donald Trump while addressing the daily WhiteHouse coronavirus briefing said “we are very close to a vaccine”,after noting vaccine trials taking place in the US, Germany, the United Kingdomand China.
He was joined by Vice-President Mike Pence and Deborah Birx,the White House coronavirus taskforce co-ordinator, the BBC reported.
“We have a lot of great, brilliant minds working onthis,” he said.
“Unfortunately we’re not very close to testing becausewhen testing starts it takes a period of time, but we’ll get it done.”
Dr Anthony Fauci, the US government’s top infectiousdiseases expert, had previously said that a vaccine will likely take 12-18months to be approved for widespread use. Most health experts also agree thatit would take at least 12-18 months before a vaccine is ready.
After Trump, Vice-President Mike Pence said the datacontinues to show “promising signs of progress” in the US fightagainst coronavirus.
Major virus hotspots including the New York Metro Area, NewJersey, Connecticut, Detroit and New Orleans “all appear to be past theirpeak”, Pence said.
“Our only conclusion is that we’re getting there,America,” he added.
“If we continue these mitigation efforts in the daysahead… we do believe by early summer we could be in a much better place as anation, with much of this coronavirus epidemic behind us.”
He says 16 states have released formal reopening plans sofar.
Vice-President said that 4.93 million coronavirus tests havebeen completed across the US, adding that commercial labs surpassed 100,000tests yesterday.
Pence says that he is “encouraged” by states’”phased approach” to reopening their economies.
“We’re slowing the spread, we’re protecting the mostvulnerable, we’re saving lives and every single day we are one day closer toopening up America again,” Pence said.