'We can get this behind us' with vaccine - Fauci

Drugmakers will likely have tens of millions of doses of coronavirus vaccines in the early part of next year, Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious diseases official, said in a Reuters interview on Wednesday, offering a more conservative view of the ramp up than some Trump administration officials.

This report produced by Chris Dignam.

"We could put this behind us." Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the United States, said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday (August 5) that he was hopeful the country could get past the coronavirus pandemic by the end of next year as long as there's an effective vaccine, doses of which he predicted would be distributed by the millions in the early part of 2021.

"We likely are going to have maybe tens of millions of doses in the early part of the year.

But as we get into 2021, the manufacturers tell us that they will have hundreds of millions and likely a billion doses by the end of 2021." Trump has suggested publicly that a vaccine could be ready long before the end of this year, an announcement that would likely help his chances at reelection.

Fauci said he has not seen any pressure from the White House to announce a successful vaccine close to the Nov.

3 election.

"They promise that they are not going to let political considerations interfere with a regulatory decision." And on the same day Trump said that the virus is "going away" and "will go away like things go away," the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases offered a more measured assessment.

"I don't think we're going to eradicate this from the planet... But what I think we can do with a combination of a good vaccine and attention to public health measures - and by attention I don't mean shut down, I mean things that are just prudent - that I think we can get this behind us... I hope, and feel it's possible, that by the time we get through 2021 and go around for another cycle that we'll have this under control."