Scientists and health experts in the countries affected by the coronavirus are scrambling to develop or find a possible cure for the growing pandemic. Dr. Anthony Fauci has revealed that progress is being made as he presents President Donald Trump a slide show showing exactly that.
The Daily Mail reports that during a briefing at the National Institute of Health about the containment of the coronavirus, Dr. Fauci presented Trump with a slide show and a graph on the health authority’s progress so far. The graph showed how the amount of time the federal government took to respond to the coronavirus compared to previous diseases such as SARS. Based on the graph, the coronavirus took the shortest time in testing a potential vaccine.
Trump has pushed for accelerated development of the coronavirus vaccine and Fauci reminded him that this has just been phase one of the first round of human testing. The graph showed that it only took two months for progress to be made regarding coronavirus compared to the other diseases. Trump was impressed by the progress after being shown the graph. “That’s fantastic, that’s great,” said the president.
This follows after their minor argument during a meeting with the pharmaceutical executives as Trump wanted the vaccine to be ready in a span of months. The executives echoed Dr. Fauci’s sentiments during the meeting, saying that to distribute the vaccine nationwide would still take a year regardless of where they are during the testing stage. Dr. Fauci has continuously stayed on message about how long it would take for a vaccine to be developed.
Dr. Fauci has also had to correct Health Secretary Alex Azar after making a comment to the press that the coronavirus vaccine would be ready in a few days, along with the Food and Drug Administration reportedly giving the green light of the vaccine entering the Phase 1 clinical trials.
Fauci quickly stepped in and clarified Azar’s statements, saying that what the Health secretary described only really refers to the first phase of development. Fauci reiterated that the United States is still 12 to 18 months away from a proper vaccine for the coronavirus.