A COVID-19 Vaccine by January? Here’s Why It’s Possible But Not Likely

By Christopher Curley

The timeline to develop a safe, effective vaccine to fight a virus is typically counted in years — or even decades.

But with the COVID-19 pandemic affecting millions around the world and killing hundreds of thousands of people, the race is on to produce a vaccine faster than ever before.

President Donald Trump has said a vaccine could be available by January, which would be an unprecedented development cycle.

But how realistic is that?

Experts say the goal is possible — but not likely . . .

“There’s a saying in research that there are a thousand ways to do an experiment wrong and that’s especially true in clinical research,” Dr. Henry I. Miller, MS, a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, told Healthline.

“For one thing, the vaccine candidates might not actually work, or they might increase the virulence of a post-vaccination infection. Or the immunity could be too transient to justify vaccinating three billion people,” he said.