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 Trump, speaking at a town hall hosted by ABC News in Philadelphia,
defended his handling of the coronavirus crisis, and said a vaccine
could be ready for distribution before the U.S. presidential
election on Nov. 3.
"We're very close to having a vaccine," he said. "If you want to
know the truth, the previous administration would have taken perhaps
years to have a vaccine because of the FDA and all the approvals.
And we're within weeks of getting it... Could be three weeks, four
weeks."
Earlier this month, top U.S. infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony
Fauci told CNN that most experts believe a vaccine will be ready by
November or December. "It is conceivable that you can have it by
October, though I don't think that that's likely." Other experts say
a scientifically credible vaccine will not be available until early
2021.
Trump bristled at tough questions from uncommitted voters and ABC
News host George Stephanopoulos during the town hall meeting,
arguing that his decision to impose travel bans on China and Europe
had saved thousands, if not millions, of lives.
He also defended Americans who have shunned face masks and social
distancing guidelines, and said even experts like Fauci had changed
their views about those practices during the crisis.
Trump has faced criticism for holding large-scale campaign events in
Nevada and other states - events that his adviser Fauci has
described as "absolutely" risky.
His Democratic challenger, former vice president Joe Biden, last
week accused Trump of "dereliction" of duty in dealing with the
pandemic, which has cost millions of jobs.
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The United States has reported nearly 6.6 million cases of COVID-19,
the disease caused by the virus, the highest number worldwide, and
nearly 195,000 deaths. That accounts for 20% of the cases worldwide,
although the United States has just 4% of the world's population.
Trump said the United States had a number of cases because it did
more testing that other countries.
He also repeated his claim from early in the pandemic that the virus
would disappear on its own, and denied understating the threat of
the disease when asked by an audience member why he would "downplay
a pandemic that is known to disproportionately harm low-income
families and minority communities."
"Yeah, well, I didn't downplay it. I actually, in many ways, I
up-played it, in terms of action. My action was very strong," the
Republican president, who is seeking reelection on Nov. 3, said.
Trump also provoked mockery on Twitter when he spoke about "herd
mentality" instead of "herd immunity," a form of indirect protection
from infectious disease that occurs when enough people have become
immune through vaccination or previous infections.
"It would go away without the vaccine ... but it's going to go away
a lot faster with it," he said. "You'll develop ... a herd
mentality."
(Additional reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Sandra Maler,
Christopher Cushing & Simon Cameron-Moore)
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