US President Donald Trump's claims that a coronavirus vaccine will soon be available might not be entirely accurate.
In an interview to CBS, Dr. Anthony Fauci said that he believed that a vaccine would be available to the general public in the US sometime in the first quarter of next year, around April. Fauci qualified that projection by saying a vaccine would only become available if the ones currently in clinical trials were proven effective.
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Fauci echoed what director of US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar said last week at a virtual health conference hosted by Goldman Sachs: "We are doing everything we can to ensure that we have supplies manufactured. Pending FDA authorizations, we believe we may have up to 100 million doses by the end of the year … and we project having enough for every American who wants a vaccine by March to April 2021."
One of the reasons Fauci is being so careful about his predictions is that three of the companies working on vaccinations or treatments have stopped trials or suffered setbacks in their trials.
Johnson and Johnson stopped its trials after one participant contracted an unexplained illness. Eli Lilly also stopped trials of an antibody-based treatment because of concern over potential risks.
Meanwhile, as Israel prepares to begin loosening the restrictions of its second nationwide lockdown, the number of new cases continued to drop on Friday, with 1,608 new positive test results for the latest 24-hour period, the Health Ministry reported.
This brings the total number of Israelis who have contracted the virus since the start of the pandemic to 301,289.
The 37,487 COVID tests processed in the same 24 hours resulted in a 4.5% positive rate. As of Friday morning, the number of confirmed active or symptomatic cases in Israel stood at 38,355.
A total of 1,259 COVID patients were hospitalized nationwide on Friday morning, including 713 listed in serious condition, of whom 247 were on ventilators.
The death toll in Israel was 2,128 as of Friday.
Meanwhile, 1,445 medical workers were in quarantine, including 151 doctors and 367 nurses.
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