The hardest-hit parts of the United States may be past the peak of the pandemic. Other places may be lifting their lockdown restrictions. But deadly pathogens don’t eradicate themselves; once Americans stop staying home, the coronavirus will continue to spread.
The expectation is the U.S. won’t return to normal until there’s an effective vaccine against COVID-19 — and almost everyone in the country has been vaccinated.
When and how that will occur has been the subject of speculation since the start of this crisis. But in recent days that chatter has intensified amid the news that Oxford researchers might have an effective vaccine ready by September andreports that President Trump has ordered a “Manhattan Project-style effort”called Operation Warp Speed that aims to inoculate almost all Americans by year’s end.
But can the U.S. really rush-release a COVID-19 vaccine this year? To understand how unprecedented that challenge is — and what the odds of overcoming it actually are — you need to understand a few key numbers.The number of months Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, had previously estimated it would take to complete this process.
Four: The number of years it took, back in the 1960s, to bring a mumps vaccine to market. No vaccine has ever been released faster. For comparison, it took 28 years to deliver the varicella vaccine; 28 years to release FluMist; 15 years for the HPV vaccine; 15 years to deliver the rotavirus vaccine; and 11 years for the first pediatric combination. A vaccine for the Ebola virus that went into clinical trials in 2014 only just received approval from U.S. regulators in December — a five-year effort considered remarkable for .......................
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