Trump predicts time US will have coronavirus vaccine

US President Donald Trump said Sunday that his administration is confident the United States will have a vaccine for the novel coronavirus by the end of the year.

“We think we are going to have a vaccine by the end of this year,” Trump said during a virtual Fox News town hall Sunday evening.

Trump’s remarks followed news that his administration was pushing agencies to speed up the vaccine development process with a new project called “Operation Warp Speed.” The project’s reported goal is to speed up vaccine development by several months and have 300 million doses of a vaccine available by January.

Trump seemed to acknowledge that his projection was viewed as ambitious, noting that medical experts would advise him against making such a statement.

According to the latest data, the US has recorded over 1,188,150 cases and 68,599 coronavirus-related deaths.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) emerged in late 2019 in China’s Hubei province, and the virus has spread to 210 countries and territories since then.

On February 11, the WHO officially named the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) as COVID-19, and on March 11, declared it a pandemic.