Can you cite one other example of a safe and effective vaccine for ANY strain of coronavirus?
There are only 7 that infect humans. Four are minor respiratory viruses that are among the over 200 viruses that cause the symptoms we just collectively call “the common cold”. The amount of work it would take (and money) to develop and safety test a vaccine for over 200 different viruses is absolutely obscene. They’d have to charge you $1,000 a shot and probably update it every year. Nobody’s paying for that.
The other three are SARS-CoV-1 (SARS 2003), SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), and MERS-CoV (MERS 2012). SARS 2003 and MERS 2012 both had vaccine candidates that made it through phase 1 and phase 2 human trials successfully. However, by the time they were ready to start phase 3 trials, both diseases had burned out. No disease equals nobody buying a vaccine equals no investment in phase 3 trials where you give the candidate to tens of thousands of people, pay all of them, and monitor all of them for both safety and efficacy.
In fact, some of the candidates for SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are just SARS-CoV-1 vaccines they pulled off the shelf and tweaked to work for SARS-CoV-2. President Trump says we’re very close. Some manufacturers have stated they may have limited doses available of candidates in testing in September or October. Multiple candidates are in the middle of phase 3 trials right now with very promising results.
In 1960, zero men had gone to space. In 1961, the first one made it. Since then, hundreds of others (566) have done it. There’s always a first. I wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating President Trump. Plenty of others have done that time and time again and always been proven wrong. If he says we’re close, you can bet it’s about to happen.