Coronavirus: fully effective vaccine unlikely to be created before next year, expert says
- French epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet says that despite ‘unprecedented effort’ a vaccine is still not likely before next year
- He said the main risks for the appearance of new virus clusters were in confined spaces
There is little chance of a 100 per cent effective coronavirus vaccine by 2021, a French expert warned Sunday, urging people to take social distancing measures more seriously.
“A vaccine is several years in development,” said epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet, a member of the team of scientists advising the government on the crisis, speaking on BFMTV television.
“Of course, there is an unprecedented effort to develop a vaccine, but I would be very surprised if we had that was effective in 2021,” he added.
While we would probably have one that worked partially, we were very far from the end of the crisis, he said.
That being the case, “we have to live with this virus” he said. And since another lockdown was out of the question, people had to go back to “more serious habits”.