Trump promises a vaccine by the end of the year, but ensures that the US will reopen "with or without it"

Donald Trump presented this Friday in partnership the two people who will lead the efforts of the United States to urgently get a vaccine for the coronavirus: Mocef Slaoui , former president of vaccines of the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline; and General Gustave Perna , head of the US Army Material Command. The first will be its scientific leader and the second, its chief of operations.

Trump took advantage of the act to confirm - until now he had done it informally - his promise to get a vaccine "by the end of this year." He assured that by then his Administration will be able to "develop, produce and distribute" the vaccine.

The coronavirus pandemic is advancing in the world and in the United States, the country most affected, with more than 1.4 million infections and more than 86,000 deaths . At the same time, the confinement decreed to avoid an even greater expansion has brought down the country's economy, which is on the way to a safe recession and unemployment above 20% , something never seen in the US. since the 1930s .

Without effective treatment, the most effective possibilities of treating the disease are the existence of an immunity of sufficient size to prevent strong outbreaks - and immunity to the virus is not yet well studied - or the development of a vaccine. Antibody studies are not very promising (in New York City, which has been the epicenter of the crisis in the world , the antibody population is 20%). An effective vaccine is the most useful tool, and the world is racing to get it.

Trump put off the US plans on Friday to get it done in a time that would be amazing. The president ran out of epithets - "big and fast," "majestic" - to describe the race to get the vaccine, dubbed "Operation Warp Speed," something like "Operation Devil Speed." For this reason, he compared it to a historical moment in the USA: "It will be a colossal scientific, industrial and logistical effort, like nothing our country has seen since the Manhattan Project," he said in reference to the development of the atomic bomb during the Second World War, which was used to close the Pacific front in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

Launching a plan for a vaccine will not avoid criticism of the Trump Administration's reaction to the epidemic. This same week, the scientific magazine «The Lancet» described the management of the crisis in the USA. of "inconsistent and inconsistent". The announcement of this project for the vaccine comes almost four months after the first case in the country, two months after Trump established the White House special group for coronavirus and a month after the president announced his directives for the reopening of the economy .

A hundred projects in development

Trump explained that there are a hundred vaccine projects underway and that fourteen of them are promising . He explained that his Administration will lift regulatory obstacles to "expedite" clinical trials and that the research work will be combined with the development of the production of the most viable options. "The federal government will invest in manufacturing all finalist candidates before they are approved," said the president. "It is risky, it is expensive, but we will save a tremendous amount of time."

Trump also recognized that the US It will work with the rest of the countries that are looking for a vaccine and that "there will be no ego" when it comes to collaborating, even if it is China.

General Perna stepped onto the podium to acknowledge that it will be a "Herculean" effort and to promise, in military language that pleases Trump, that "we will defeat the enemy." Previously, the scientific arm of the project, Slaoui, who described the goal of having a vaccine at the end of this year as both "credible" and "demanding".

Slaoui said he had seen some preliminary results from the finalist projects and that they were good: "They make me more confident that we will have hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine by the end of the year."

The scientist's optimism provoked applause in the White House rose garden, where the announcement was made, which had a tense and strange atmosphere. On a hot day, the horn of a truckers demonstration was heard in the background - "it is a protest in favor of Trump," said the president, "it is an act of love" - ​​and with the unusual image of charges with a mask around Trump, who has refused to use it, despite calls for it to be exemplary.

One of those who wore it was Anthony Fauci , the US authority. in infectious diseases and the most prestigious voice in the country about coronavirus. This week, Fauci has taken Trump's reprimand for warning of the risks of new outbreaks and "avoidable death and suffering" if states return to activity too soon.

Trump insisted on Friday that the United States it will reopen "with and without a vaccine" and that if the result is the second, "the fire will be extinguished wherever there is one."

Trump's announcement comes two days after Rick Bright appeared in Congress , the high office in charge until April of the development of a vaccine and who was demoted for opposing treatments such as hydroxychloriquine. Bright said he would be "very optimistic" to get a vaccine in 12-18 months. Fauci, for his part, has assured that it is something "feasible".