President Donald Trump said on Friday that the U.S. has already produced two million vaccine doses for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) that are “ready to go” if they “check out for safety”.
“We had a meeting on vaccines yesterday. We are doing incredibly well. We can have some very positive surprises. Tremendous progress is being made on vaccines,” Trump said during a news conference from the White House.
“In fact, we are ready to go in terms of transportation and logistics. We have over two million ready to go if it checks out for safety.”
Trump also said “likewise, we are doing very well with therapeutics. Cures we are doing well.”
According to The New York Times, the Trump administration has selected five companies as the most likely candidates to produce a vaccine for the Coronavirus disease.
“And the nice part is that four companies, you could even say seven or eight companies, that are doing some very similar and some very different on the vaccine front. And, some similar and somewhat different on the therapeutic front,” he said.
He, however, didn’t say which ones have started vaccine production.
The National Institutes of Health has been fast-tracking work with biotech firm Moderna on a potential vaccine to prevent Covid-19.
White House health advisor Dr Anthony Fauci had said earlier this week that there are at least four trials of potential vaccines that he is either directly or indirectly involved in.
Fauci said that by the beginning of 2021 “we hope to have” a couple of million doses.
Researchers have been accelerating the development of Vaccine candidates by investing in multiple stages of research.
Trump even said on Friday that officials “understand the disease now.”
However, scientists have said they still don’t fully understand key aspects of the virus, including how immune systems respond once someone is exposed to it.
The number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the US currently stands at 1.87 million and 108,120 people have been killed so far, according to Johns Hopkins University.