The President of the United States on Wednesday contradicted experts at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and promised that he would distribute 100 million doses of vaccine against covid-19 by the end of the year.
“We will be able to distribute 100 million doses of vaccines by the end of 2020, and a much larger number later,” Donald Trump said at a press conference held at the White House in Washington.
Trump’s statements contradict the director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Robert Redfield, who said on Wednesday at a hearing in the United States Senate that the vaccine will be available between November and December, but will be distributed to limited groups at higher risk.
In addition, Redfield indicated that Americans should only have access to the vaccine “probably in the late second quarter or third quarter of 2021”.
Asked about the expert’s statements, Trump considered that Redfield was mistaken and said he was “surprised” by the statements, adding that he called to explain that he had “made a mistake”.
“I think he made a mistake when he said that, it’s just wrong information. I called him and he didn’t tell me that, he must have confused the message, maybe it wasn’t clear. We are ready to proceed immediately ”, guaranteed the President.
Trump said on Tuesday that the vaccine could be ready in “four weeks”, having assured on Wednesday that it will be announced “in October”.
“Maybe in mid-October” or “shortly after October” or “in November, but not later,” he said.
To be distributed to the population, any vaccine must be approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the government agency responsible for approving the use of new drugs, vaccines and other products related to public health.
Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca are conducting vaccine studies, which have already reached level 3 in the USA, that is, they are being tested on humans, but have not yet submitted a final product to the FDA for approval.
Once the FDA approves the vaccine, authorities will be able to distribute the first doses in just 24 hours, announced Paul Ostrowski, who oversees the logistics of Operation Warp Speed, launched by the Government to accelerate efforts to contain the pandemic.
The United States is the country in the world most affected by the pandemic, with 6.6 million cases detected and more than 196,000 deaths, according to independent data from Johns Hopkins University.
According to a report by the French news agency AFP, the covid-19 pandemic has already caused 936,095 deaths and more than 29.6 million cases of infection in 196 countries and territories.
The disease is transmitted by a new coronavirus detected in late December in Wuhan, a city in central China.
After Europe succeeded China as the center of the pandemic in February, the American continent is now the one with the most confirmed cases and the most deaths.
