A vaccine for the coronavirus could be ready as early as this fall…that’s according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Director, Alex Azar, who visited Grand Rapids on Tuesday afternoon. The comments came as Azar visited Skytron---it’s a company that manufactures infection prevention technologies in Grand Rapids, Michigan---and when asked when a COVID-19 would be ready, Azar said he’s optimistic it could be here as early as September, and all but guaranteeing one would be ready by the end of the year.
“It’s very credible that we will have hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine in the beginning of next year,” Azar said. ”So, what we are doing, were taking the most promising prospects for vaccines and investing heavily in them in terms of their clinical development…normally drug companies don’t build manufacturing capacity for commercial scale manufacturing, especially for vaccines…until you have the data. We are actually building manufacturing capacity right now, and we will be producing hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine right now, even as that goes through the development program. So that, if the FDA finds that any of these vaccines are safe and effective and appropriate for use, we will have vaccine manufactured, filled, finished, ready to go, right then.”
The comments echo Dr. Anthony Fauci’s beliefs that a vaccine is on its way. During a congressional hearing Tuesday in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Fauci expressed his optimism that a COVID-19 vaccine will be ready by January.
