Washington: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious diseases expert, told Senate lawmakers Tuesday he’s optimistic there will be a coronavirus vaccine, but concerned about new spikes in U.S. COVID-19 cases.
Speaking at a hearing of the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee, with other members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Fauci said he is optimistic that a vaccine will come.
“Anyone who has been involved in vaccinations will tell you, we’ll have a safe and effective vaccine.”
Fauci added that researchers are generally “hopeful” that a coronavirus vaccine is possible and that the public will be receiving doses by next year.
“We are cautiously optimistic, looking at animal data and the preliminary data, that we will at least know the extent of the efficacy sometime in the winter and early part of next year,” he said in his opening statement.
Fauci, however, said he’s “quite concerned” about the recent spike in U.S. cases, and said there are likely two main causes — that some states may have moved too quickly to reopen, and too many Americans are ignoring health guidelines.
“We have got to get that message out that we are all in this together,” he said. “If we are going to contain this, we’ve got to contain it together.”
