Vaccine trial "hopefully" complete by the end of the year: Dr. Eric Topol

Scripps Research Translational Institute Founder Dr. Eric Topol look at how the U.S. responded to the coronavirus since the pandemic began to spread in February, and how COVID-19 vaccine trials could potentially be completed by the end of this year.

Video transcript

DR. ERIC TOPOL: Well, the vaccine programs are really exciting, because in such a short time-- I mean, truly unprecedented-- we've made so much progress on vaccines that will induce a really strong antibody response, some of which will also engender good T-cell response. So that parts looks great. And these trials, ranging from 30,000 60,000 participants, are going to get definitive answers as long as they go to completion.

And that's the problem, is that we have a president who is saying that we would have an emergency approval even before, potentially, the election. And we also know that that's not possible to do. That would be cutting corner. That would be shortcuts. It's going to take well into the rest of this year to get the answers on multiple vaccine trials. But hopefully, by the end of the year or beginning of next year, we'll have safe and effective, compelling evidence. And that'll be really important for us to be able to get an exit strategy out of the pandemic.