Philadelphia health commissioner hopeful for COVID-19 vaccine in 2021

When could a COVID-19 vaccine be ready?

FOX 29's Jeff Cole reports.

PHILADELPHIA - When could a COVID-19 vaccine be ready?

About a dozen different vaccines are in various stages of testing worldwide, including in Britain, China and the U.S. Last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, said he is cautiously optimistic there will be a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the year or early 2021.

Several wealthy countries have already ordered millions of doses of

"The second wave has got to be disheartening after so much progress we’ve made," Philadelphia Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley said.

Cases are rising in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia in what the city health commissioner calls the “second wave."

Researchers now believe the virus is clearly vicious, but apparently not all that smart.

"It really appears to be that it’s easy to train an immune system to recognize and kill this virus, much easier than other viruses, much easier than I would have expected," Farley said.

Farley says around the globe there are 145 coronavirus vaccines in the works with 19 being tested on humans.

The most successful is a research team in the United Kingdom testing its vaccine on 10,000 people in three countries. Also seeing positive results, a vaccine in the first phase of testing produced by Plymouth Meeting-based Inovio.

The president spoke to FOX 29 back in April. "We just need the genetic sequence of the virus. It’s so much faster, much safer. We’re hoping it’s much more effective than conventional vaccines," President J. Joseph Kim President said.

Discovering a vaccine is only part of the challenge. Hundred of millions of doses must be produced and given with the most vulnerable first in line. Until then, COVID-19 will linger.

"I’m optimistic we will have at least one or maybe more than one vaccine deployed here in Philadelphia in 2021," Farley said.