Published 01:48 IST, March 20th 2020
Donald Trump claims of slashing red tape to develop vaccines amid coronavirus outbreak
US President Donald Trump announced “exciting progress” on Thursday over finding therapy drugs and vaccines to fight the coronavirus.
Members of the US Task Force created to address the deadly coronavirus outbreak held a press briefing on March 19 at the White House as authorities on the local, state and federal levels take preventive measures to slow the spread of the disease.
US President Donald Trump tweeted "very important news from the FDA" on Wednesday but he failed to share the details with the public during the briefing as promised. Trump reportedly announced “exciting progress” on Thursday over finding therapy drugs and vaccines to fight the coronavirus.
Trump on COVID-19 Vaccine
Trump at White House said, "Today I want to share with you exciting progress that the FDA's making with the private sector, as we slash red tape like nobody has ever done it before.”
“So we slash red tape to develop vaccines and therapies as fast as it can possibly be done, long before anybody else was even thinking about doing this. As you know, earlier this week we began the first clinical trial of a vaccine candidate for the virus. That was launched in record time. It was just a few weeks, and that would have taken years to do, not so long ago,” said the US President.
“As we race to develop a vaccine, we’re also producing antiviral therapies. That's what we are really going to be talking about today. That's the purpose of being up here today. To me that’s even more important. The vaccine, you have to have long tests, because you have to make sure what goes into somebody’s body is not going to destruction, do bad things, so you need long tests,” Trump added.
Trump priases FDA
Trumpp added that while the development, testing, and approval of vaccines take a long time, treatments for the virus can be discovered and approved faster.
"They are doing great with the vaccines, but there’s still a long process, but the therapies are something we can move on much faster, potentially. The treatments that will be able to reduce the severity or duration of the symptoms, make people better. Essentially we are looking at things to make people better, or at the very earlier stages, they wouldn't even know they had it. That's where I believe it's going to work even the best,” Trump said.
Trump also praised FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and the agency, saying, “They've done things in times that were not even thinkable.”
Updated 01:48 IST, March 20th 2020