We could be COVID-free ‘within a year to 18 months’ - Dr Anthony Fauci says

The world could reach the point where we don’t have to worry about COVID-19 within “the next year to a year and a half”, according to America’s top infectious diseases expert.

Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said fears around the virus could be over within the next year if vaccine developments continue to go well.

Speaking during a livestream hosted by Georgetown University, he said efforts to develop a vaccine are in a “pretty good place”.

No vaccine is going to be 100 per cent protective, he said. What we hope is that – with the combination of people having already been exposed and a vaccine that’s anywhere from 70-75 per cent protective – that there will be enough herd immunity that there will be a time when you and I don’t have to worry about getting infected with this awful virus.

We hope that that time will be reasonably soon … within the next year to year and a half.

A 30,000-person study will begin at the end of July to determine if the vaccine can prevent infection.

If things work out the way we hope they do, I think by the end of this year and the beginning of calendar year 2021, we will have enough information to know whether the candidates that we’re dealing with are safe and effective, Dr Fauci said.

WARNING TO YOUNG PEOPLE
Dr Fauci warned that the US “has a serious situation” on its hands, urging young people to not be “part of the problem”.

There is an understandable situation where a young person could say, ‘You know, statistically the chances of my getting into trouble by getting infected are much smaller than an elderly person, he said.

I say that with some trepidation, because I’m not blaming anyone, and I think people do this innocently. They don’t mean to be part of the problem, but inadvertently they are part of the problem.