United States President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the country has already 'flattened the curve', and it is ready for a 'phased and gradual reopening' even though coronavirus cases and deaths shows no sign of stopping.
"Thanks to the profound commitment of our citizens, we have flattened the curve and countless American lives have been saved. Our country is now in the next stage of the battle - a very safe phased and gradual reopening, reopening our country," Trump said.
Trump also said that the country is making 'tremendous progress', highlighting that it has 'accelerated the development of new therapies and vaccines'.
"Something is going to happen. Tremendous progress being made. Don't want to talk about it until it's there. But I'll say they really are making progress. Johnson & Johnson folks have been really fantastic. They want to get to it fast. We'll all know very soon," Trump said.
"We're doing something very dramatic & there hasn't been anything like what we have done since the mobilisation since World War II. We've dramatically accelerated development of new therapies & potential vaccines. We have 90 clinical trials underway & hundreds more on way," he added.
Trump had earlier said that he was confident the vaccine for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine will become available by the end of 2020.
“We are very confident that we are going to have a vaccine at the end of the year, by the end of the year. We think we are going to have a vaccine by the end of this year, and we are pushing very hard," Trump said during a town hall at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. The timeline given by President Trump has grabbed everyone's attention because several public health officials have said a vaccine for coronavirus could take at least a year to 18 months. It is to be noted that vaccines often take many years to develop.
A team of researchers at Oxford University in the UK are also working on coronavirus vaccine and they have said that their vaccine if it proves effective, could become available in the market by September 2020.
According to the World Health Organization, at present several coronavirus vaccines are in the development phase.
The United States has the most number of confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths with the total number of COVID-19 patients in the country increasing to 12,24,570 till Tuesday evening. The total death toll in the US due to COVID-19 went up to 68,000 on Sunday.
It reported 11,735 cases, and 2,333 deaths in the last 24 hours.
