CDC: Vaccine for most in mid-2021

Prediction contradicts Trump’s desire that shot will be available before election

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted Wednesday that most of the American public will not have access to a vaccine against the novel coronavirus until late spring or summer of next year.

At a Senate hearing on the government’s response to the pandemic, CDC director Robert Redfield adhered to President Donald Trump’s oft-stated desire for a safe and effective vaccine to become available in November or December — perhaps just before the presidential election seven weeks away.

But Redfield said the vaccine will be provided first to people most vulnerable to COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, and supplies will increase over time, so Americans who are lower priority for the protection will be offered the shot more gradually. For it to be “fully available to the American public, so we begin to take advantage of vaccine to get back to our regular life,” he said, “I think we are probably looking at late second quarter, third quarter 2021.”

Though any individual vaccinated should benefit, he said, the progressive widening of its availability means there will be a time lag between when a vaccine is approved and when it could have a measurable effect in controlling the pandemic. That might be six to nine months after the day it is approved by federal drug regulators, Redfield predicted.

The comments were the most detailed time frame outlined so far by the leader of the government’s main public health agency.

They came as Trump has latched onto the prospect of a vaccine as crucial to his prospects for a second term, with low approval ratings among voters for his handling of the worst public health crisis that the country and world have confronted in a century. A vaccine also is widely regarded as a pivot point for Americans to be unfettered from the constraints the pandemic has imposed on daily life — from recreation such as concerts and movie theaters to workplaces that remain shuttered.

A race is underway internationally among pharmaceutical makers to develop vaccines that are safe and effective against the virus, which has infected nearly 6.6 million people in the U.S. and killed almost 200,000. Developing a vaccine typically takes years, but researchers are working with unprecedented speed.