Washington: Dr Anthony Fauci, one of America’s top infectious disease experts, expressed hope that a 50-60 per cent effective COVID-19 vaccine will be ‘acceptable’. And that is “in a safe way” will be good enough to bring the world back to normalcy in a year’s time.
The chances of a vaccine being 98 per cent effective are not great, he clarified.
In an interview with American news broadcaster PBS, he said that a vaccine should be available end of this year or early 2021. He, however, clarified that the virus is not going anywhere.
“That doesn’t mean – so, I want to be clear – that you are going to eradicate this virus. The only virus that we have ever eradicated in the history of the planet has been smallpox for humans. But we can get it under good enough control that it is so low that it doesn’t interfere with the kind of normal life that we want, to get the economy back, to get employment back,” he explained.
On the controversial Russian vaccine, the 79-year-old director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said that we need “to be looking if a vaccine is safe and effective”.
He recently asked the American public not to politicize the coronavirus and highlighted the need to work together. “Our country has been through very, very difficult situations. We’ve been through a Depression, we’ve been through a World War. We pulled together through 9/11.”
He warned cautiously saying if you are not taking precautions, “You are part of the problem rather than the solution.”
Dr Fauci had earlier expressed that 100 per cent herd immunity that the UK and Sweden briefly tried will lead to a lot of deaths.
Social distancing, regular hand washing and face masks are the only ways to protect until a vaccine is ready, he added.
