Optimistic comments from Dr Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, in an interview on a podcast from
The Economist.
"I’m still going to be an optimist that we’re going to get there. I think there’s a real possibility that we’ll have a safe and efficacious coronavirus vaccine before the end of the year. When a vaccine is ready to go into phase three trials – the efficacy studies – which are starting as we speak, at that moment in time, the United States is buying 100 million doses of that vaccine to be produced now so that in the event that in October or November that our FDA concludes that the vaccine is safe and it works, we don’t have to wait now for the company to setup manufacturing; we’ll have a hundred million doses. I’m sure there’ll be at least five and maybe seven vaccines where we’ve decided to basically buy them whether they work or not to make sure there’s no delay in being able to provide them. I’ve never seen vaccine development move quicker. There’s a highly effective partnership between the private sector and government to make this happen and I would assume that we’re going to have somewhere hopefully between one and three vaccines approved for human use prior to the end of January. That said, science has its own timeline, we can’t predict but I’m much more optimistic than I was 12 weeks ago.”
Economist Radio - The Economist Asks: Robert Redfield