CORONAVIRUS
Fauci confident vaccine will get to Americans in 2021.
WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday that he remains confident a coronavirus vaccine will be ready by early next year, telling lawmakers that a quartermillion Americans already have volunteered to take part in clinical trials.
But if the future looks encouraging, public health alarms still are going off in the present.
Officials testifying with Fauci at a contentious House hearing acknowledged the U.S. remains unable to deliver all COVID-19 test results within two or three days, and they jointly pleaded with Americans to comply with basic precautions such as wearing masks, avoiding crowds and washing their hands frequently.
Those simple steps can deliver “the same bang for the buck as if we just shut the entire economy down,” said a frustrated Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Looking ahead, Fauci said he’s “cautiously optimistic that we will have a vaccine by the end of this year and as we go into 2021. I don’t think it’s dreaming. … I believe it’s a reality (and) will be shown to be reality.”
As the government’s top infectious disease expert, Fauci heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Under White House orders, federal health agencies and the Defense Department are carrying out a plan dubbed Operation Warp Speed to deliver 300 million vaccine doses on a compressed timeline.
That will happen only after the Food and Drug Administration determines one or more vaccines are safe and effective. Several candidates are being tested.
Don’t look for a mass nationwide vaccination right away, Fauci told lawmakers. There will be a priority list based on recommendations from scientific advisers.
“But ultimately, within a reasonable period of time, the plans now allow for any American who needs a vaccine to get it within the year 2021,” Fauci said.
Fauci, Redfield, and Department of Health and Human Services “testing czar” Adm. Brett Giroir testified at the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis at a moment when early progress against the coronavirus seems to have been frittered away.
Nearly 4.5 million Americans have been infected with COVID-19, and more than 150,000 have died.
In recent weeks the virus has rebounded in the South and West, and now upticks are being seen in the Midwest. Testing bottlenecks remain a major issue.
Asked if it’s possible to deliver coronavirus test results to patients within 48 to 72 hours, Giroir acknowledged “it is not a possible benchmark we can achieve today given the demand and supply.”
Giroir said a two- to three-day turnaround “is absolutely a benchmark we can achieve moving forward.”
As the health officials were testifying, President Donald Trump in a tweet repeated a false claim that high numbers of U.S. cases are due to extensive testing. Committee Chairman James Clyburn, D-S.C., tried to enlist Fauci to rebut the president.
“Now Dr. Fauci,” the chairman intoned, “do you agree with the president’s statement, or do you stand by your previous answer that the difference is caused by multiple factors including the fact that some states did not do a good job of reopening?”
Fauci answered directly. “I stand by my previous statement that the increase in cases was due to a number of factors,” he said. One was “that in the attempt to reopen, that in some situations, states did not abide strictly by the guidelines that the task force and the White House had put out.”
And Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, tried to press Fauci into saying demonstrations against police violence toward Black Americans spread the virus.
“You make all kinds of recommendations,” Jordan said. “You made comments on dating, baseball, and everything you can imagine … I’m just asking should we try to limit the protesting?”
“I’m not favoring anybody over anybody,” Fauci answered. “And I don’t judge one crowd versus another crowd. When you’re in a crowd, particularly if you’re not wearing a mask, that induces the spread.”