Trump says 'we essentially have vaccine' and compares effort to defeating Isis

The president’s timeline runs counter to public health expert predictions of a vaccine being widely available by the summer or fall of 2021

Donald Trump said the US “essentially” has the coronavirus vaccine and would soon announce distribution plans for 100 million doses by end of the year, with enough for all Americans to be vaccinated by April.

Speaking at a White House press conference on Friday, the president compared the rapid development and deployment of the vaccine to the defeat of Isis in the Middle East, and said hundreds of millions of doses would be available by the end of the first quarter of 2021.  

“We essentially have it, announcing very soon,” Mr Trump said.

“In a short time we’ll have a safe and effective vaccine and we will defeat the virus. Interestingly, as I was saying, it will go very well just like what we did with our military, with respect to Isis, did very well. Long ahead of schedule.”  

Mr Trump said the vaccine candidates are currently going through the “gold-standard” of clinical trials and, once ready, the military is ready to begin distribution within 24-hours of approval.

While the vaccines would be ready for high-risk and first responders by the end of the year, more would be rolled out as it became available.  

“Hundreds of millions of doses will be available every month and we expect to have enough vaccines for every American by April and again I’ll say even at that later stage, the delivery will go as fast as it comes,” Mr Trump said.

Earlier this week, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention director Robert Redfield said the vaccine wouldn’t be widely available for the general public until either summer or fall of 2021.

It was a stance that Mr Trump denied on Wednesday, saying the public health expert had “made a mistake” or was “confused” by the question.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the White House’s coronavirus taskforce’s infectious disease expert, said in an interview with WTOP that they were both right, depending on how soon they have approval on the vaccine.

“I think in many respects, they were both right,” Mr Fauci said. “The president was saying is that it is entirely conceivable that we will have an answer (on a vaccine) by October.”

In that case, the timeline would move forward and align with the president’s prediction of a first-quarter distribution. If, however, they don’t get that answer until November or December as Mr Fauci projects, then the timeline moves into later next year.

“Once it becomes clear that a vaccine is safe and effective, the doses that would be administered are already being manufactured, so we could hit the ground running,” he said.  

“But if you want to ask the question, what about getting everybody vaccinated so that we can say vaccines have now had a significant impact on how we are able to act in the sense of going back to some degree of normality — that very likely would be in the first half to the third quarter of 2021.”

At a CNN town hall this week, Joe Biden said if Mr Fauci says the vaccine is safe and effective then everyone should go ahead and take it. But while he trusts the science and experts, he doesn’t trust the president’s assessment on taking the vaccine.

When Mr Trump was asked on Friday if he thought he knew better than the experts he has been contradicting, the president said, yeah, “I think in many cases I do”.

“Joe Biden’s anti-vaccine theories are putting a lot of lives at risk, and they’re only doing it for political reasons it’s very foolish,” Mr Trump said.