Will there be a coronavirus vaccine before the Nov. 3 presidential election? Incumbent US President Donald Trump certainly hopes so. But even if his long-shot prediction were to come true, the realities of producing, distributing and administering one or more COVID-19 vaccines mean it could still take months before most people in the US received one — and possibly even longer before life returns to some semblance of normal. That hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from ratcheting up expectations.
And vaccine manufacturers aren’t the only ones responding to pressure from the White House to hurry along the approval of a vaccine, either. The New Yorker reports that some Chinese officials are taking Trump’s timeline seriously enough to rush approval of their own vaccines. That revelation comes on the heels of another investigation by the New York Times that details how China has been administering significant numbers of experimental coronavirus vaccines outside the typical testing process. Many worry that a similar disregard for safety protocols could lead to the premature approval of a vaccine in the US.
Currently, there are seven vaccine candidates being tested in the US, three of which are nearing the final stages needed for Food and Drug Administration approval. Considering SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19 — was only discovered less than a year ago, the progress is actually happening at a faster clip than ever before in the history of infectious disease (vaccines take, on average, about 10.7 years to develop), despite Trump’s claim that vaccine development is being intentionally stifled…Read more>>
Source:-cnet
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