In his remarks at the July 4th celebration at the White House on Saturday, President Donald Trump claimed that a therapeutic and/or vaccine for the coronavirus will be around “long before the end of the year,” per ABC News.
“I want to send our thanks to the scientists and researchers around the country and even around the world who are at the forefront of our historic effort to rapidly develop and deliver life-saving treatments and ultimately a vaccine.,” Trump said. “We are unleashing our nation’s scientific brilliance and we’ll likely have a therapeutic and/or vaccine solution long before the end of the year.”
Trump also made the claim that this country has tested over 40 million people. Actually, the president was close to being correct on that statistic. As of July 4, the CDC is reporting the U.S. has tested 36,255,888 people. Of that number, 3,282,484 or 9.0 percent tested positive.
Said Trump: “By so doing, we show cases, 99% of which are totally harmless, results that no other country can show because no other country is testing that we have, not in terms of the numbers or in terms of the quality. Trump did not say where he got the 99 percent figure.
Asked about Trump’s comments Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Hahn said that the FDA is currently overseeing 141 clinical trials of potential COVID-19 therapeutic treatments. However, he said that he was not in a position to make a judgment about timelines for a vaccine.
On CNN’s “State of the Nation” with Dana Bash, Hahn said “I’m not going to get into who’s right and who is wrong,” when pressed about the misleading claim President Trump made — that 99% of coronavirus cases in America are “totally harmless.
“I’m not going to get into who’s right and who is wrong,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn says when pressed about the misleading claim President Trump made — that 99% of coronavirus cases in America are “totally harmless.” CNNSOTU WpJmQRdGVQ
— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) July 5, 2020
Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and a key member of the White House coronavirus task force, told The Hill in May “any time you develop a vaccine, you always remember, you always have a question that you may not get an effective vaccine.”