Dr. Fauci ‘cautiously optimistic’ COVID-19 Vaccine To Be Ready At End Of 2020
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Arguably the nation’s most trusted immunologist says he believes a coronavirus vaccine can be ready by the end of the year.
During a congressional hearing Tuesday in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Dr. Anthony Fauci expressed his optimism that “it will be when and not if” there will be a COVID-19 vaccine and some will be ready at the end of the 2020 calendar year.
"It is generally vaccines that put the nail in the coffin," Fauci said while testifying before Congress.
Fauci is recognized as one of the world's leading experts on infectious diseases and has been a medical advisor to every United States president since Ronald Reagan. Fauci’s comments come just days after he expressed his doubt to CNN.com on whether football can be played safely during this fall season due to the ongoing concerns of the coronavirus.
Fauci was testifying Tuesday morning along with Center for Disease Control director Dr. Robert Redfield and Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir and US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn on Trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic.
In the interview with CNN, Fauci laid out a comprehensive “bubble” system for professional football that he thought might have an opportunity of working and would be similar to what the National Basketball Association and National Hockey League are attempting to work out in order to restart its 2020-21 seasons.
“Unless players are essentially in a bubble -- insulated from the community and they are tested nearly every day -- it would be very hard to see how football is able to be played this fall,” Dr. Fauci said last week to CNN.
In his Sunday morning appearance on NBC’s ‘Meet The Press’, Dr. Michael T. Osterholm continued a trend of skepticism by national medical and health officials that team sports will be able to return to play safely this fall despite not yet having a vaccine for the coronavirus.
“At this point, it’s going to be a challenge if you have teams that continue to have outbreaks of cases within their players,” Dr. Osterholm said to NBC political director Chuck Todd, who is also the moderator of the ‘Meet The Press’ program. “At some point, we’ll hopefully have a situation where we won’t have all that transmission.”
Based on the new regulations for phase four of the "Restore Illinois" plan presented Monday by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, athletics officials at University of Illinois are beginning to further investigate having a certain amount of football fans in the stands.
“At first blush, that seems to be what it says,” a source inside the U of I athletics department said. “We’re still taking a closer look at the guidelines and comparing them to plans we were already talking about.”
Obviously a vaccine to the COVID-19 by Jan. 2021 would immediately impact the sporting world and collegiate sports in the winter and spring seasons that saw their seasons cancelled in March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.