Fauci: With vaccine, ‘we could start talking about real normality again’ in 2021

The completion of a coronavirus vaccine could allow the U.S. to return to “real normality” in 2021, Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, said Thursday.

“The timetable … of getting into 2021, well into the year, then I can think with a successful vaccine — if we could vaccinate the overwhelming majority of the population — we could start talking about real normality again,” Fauci said Thursday on CNN contributor David Axelrod’s podcast “The Axe Files.” “But it is going to be a gradual process.”

Fauci said the drugmakers working on vaccine candidates had told him “that they would have doses to the tunes of tens of millions early in the year, and up to hundreds of millions as we get well into 2021, and some companies say that even after awhile, you could get as many as a billion doses.”

Fauci also backed up President Trump’s characterization of their relationship as “very good,” despite the president frequently striking an optimistic note on the virus that is often out of step with Fauci’s own public statements.

“I am trying my best to completely stay out of politics. But when you’re in a situation that’s politically charged, it’s kind of difficult to completely not be impacted by it,” Fauci told Axelrod.

“I stay out of any personal involvement in politics, but I try to do my job. But I’m aware of the tension,” he added. “The one thing that’s interesting that I think people don’t appreciate is that I do have a very good relationship with the President, in the sense of no animosity at all. In fact, it’s quite a good relationship.”

On Monday, early results of a trial of AstraZeneca’s potential vaccine indicates it indices an immune response, but developers within the company and Oxford University said further research is necessary.

Representatives for the drugmaker told Congress on Tuesday it could potentially have a vaccine ready by September, but the head of the UK vaccine task force said a vaccine will likely be available in 2021 at the very earliest, according to CNN.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Pentagon, under an agreement with Pfizer, would begin nationwide delivery of the company’s vaccine candidate in the fourth quarter of 2020 if it proves successful and secures emergency use authorization.