Any vaccine developed to ward off the novel coronavirus would likely be limited in how long it would shield against infection, top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said Monday.
“This is a great question and its the reason why we have to be humble about what we do. You can assume that we’ll get protection for at least a cycle,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an appearance on a live-streamed video conference hosted by the National Institutes of Health.
“We’re going to assume that there’s a degree of protection, but that it’s going to be finite.”
A shot to protect against COVID-19 won’t work like the measles vaccine, which lasts throughout a person’s lifetime, Fauci said.
He expects the American public will have “an answer” before the end of the year or early 2021 as to whether one of the more than 140 experimental shots in development is safe and effective.
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