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Operation Warp Speed Chief Science Advisor Moncef Slaoui told CNBC that Americans can expect to return to “ normalcy ” by summer 2021, as families in the United States spend Thanksgiving apart this year for keep their loved ones safe.
“We hope to have vaccinated 70% to 80% of the US population by May or June 2021, so I hope that by the summer we should be basically back to normal,” Slaoui said in an interview Wednesday evening on ” The news with Shepard Smith “.
The coronavirus pandemic is spreading to cities and towns in the United States, and data shows it has no signs of slowing. There were 88,000 people hospitalized with Covid-19 on Tuesday, according to the Covid Tracking Project. Deaths are also on the rise. The United States reported more than 2,100 deaths on Tuesday, the highest number of deaths since May, according to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins data.
Doctors and scientists, however, are reassuring Americans that there will be a truce. Two weeks after Thanksgiving, the FDA will meet to discuss whether to give the Pfizer vaccine the green light. If it does, the government plans to ship 6.4 million doses to communities across the country.
Slaoui said vaccinating all Americans will be a “challenge,” but he thinks it’s doable. “People need to know that between 140 and 180 million doses of the flu vaccine are produced, distributed, and injected into the population of the United States each year over a period from August to possibly January,” Slaoui said. . “So, we could double that number over time, but it’s not from scratch, which was very different from testing.”
Presenter Shepard Smith noted that another challenge will be convincing people that a vaccine is safe to take. A recent Gallup poll showed that only 58% of Americans said they would get a coronavirus vaccine.
“It is a great concern and it is really a shame that the political context in which the development of this vaccine took place has exacerbated the hesitation and lack of confidence that comes from the fact that we have gone very fast,” said Slaoui.
Slaoui explained that the scientists did not “start with a blank piece of paper” and were able to skip 10 to 15 years of discovery and development work that took place around the technologies of the platform where the vaccines are made. . He said that while it normally takes 6 to 7 years to discover a vaccine, many of the basics had already been done thanks to the last few years of research. Another factor that helped speed the process was the large number of participants in clinical trials of the Covid vaccine, Slaoui said.
“We will know more about these vaccines and their efficacy and safety compared to ‘medium’ vaccines in the short term,” Slaoui said. “What we won’t know much about is their long-term safety, just because the tests had to be done quickly and it’s important that we immunize people. We have 2,000 people dying every day.”
Slaoui said a comprehensive surveillance system existed to track people once the population starts taking vaccines. Slaoui added that if there were any signs of long-term problems, those problems would be addressed “immediately”.
“Please keep your ears open and your mind open, listen and then judge the facts and the data,” Slaoui. She said. “I am confident that if we do that, most Americans will agree to be vaccinated. 95% effectiveness is insurance against this pandemic.”
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