WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is touting the fast progress in getting a vaccine available to counter the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 240,000 people in the United States. No vaccine has been formally approved, but Trump said one could be available to the general public as soon as April.
Trump spoke in the Rose Garden on Friday, his first comments since Election Day. He did not concede the election to President-elect Joe Biden but said his administration will never go to a lockdown that a Biden administration might recommend.
For now, it’s a question the president-elect would prefer to avoid. In the week since he defeated Trump, Biden has devoted most of his public remarks to encouraging Americans to wear a mask and view the coronavirus as a threat that has no regard for political ideology.
Trump on Friday called U.S. work on the vaccine the “single greatest mobilization in U.S. history” in pioneering and developing vaccines and therapies in record time -- five times faster than the 8 to 12 years it normally takes.
There have been more than 100,000 new confirmed U.S. cases reported daily for more than a week.
Watch the news conference here: