Trump sets ambitious deadline for vaccine

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump outlined an ambitious effort Friday to develop, produce and distribute a fully approved COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the year, a timeline that even those in charge of the project acknowledge is highly unlikely.

Mr. Trump said the $10 billion program would have a goal of producing 300 million doses to administer to Americans by January.

Officials said the initiative would seek to streamline and coordinate the work of government agencies, private industry and the military. A former pharmaceutical executive and an Army four-star general will head the effort, which the White House called Operation Warp Speed.

“We’re looking to get it by the end of the year if we can,” Mr. Trump said in the Rose Garden. “Tremendous strides are being made.”

But Mr. Trump also hedged on the importance of the effort, declaring that

America is already on the rebound from the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed about 87,000 Americans and cratered the economy.

“I want to make one thing clear: vaccine or no vaccine, we’re back,” he said. He repeated a claim he’s made since the first U.S. coronavirus cases were reported three months ago, that the virus will eventually “go away” on its own.

Public health officials worry about bringing a potential vaccine to market without several rounds of clinical trials to ensure that it is safe and effective.

The National Institutes of Health says one or two possible vaccine candidates could be ready for large-scale testing by July, with several others likely to follow. Elsewhere around the world, about a dozen vaccine candidates are teed up for smallscale testing or safety studies.

Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious diseases physician at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said setting a deadline for a vaccine is “dangerous because you’re going to give people a false sense of hope and security.”