CDC director says it might take until July for 'entire American public' to get COVID vaccine

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield on Wednesday indicated that it could take slightly less than a year for a sufficient number of Americans to become vaccinated against COVID-19, a prediction that comes as medical officials across the globe are working feverishly to produce a coronavirus vaccine. 

"I think that’s going to take us April, May, June, you know, possibly July, to get the entire American public completely vaccinated," Redfield said during testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The prediction came on the same day that Johnson & Johnson announced that its COVID-19 vaccine candidate will enter Phase 3 clinical trials, with tens of thousands of adults set to receive an experimental dose of the medicine. 

The Trump administration has been pushing for a workable vaccine to be developed by the end of the year. President Trump on Monday appeared to move that timeline up substantially, saying in an interview that he expected it "within a matter of weeks," or "maybe by the end of October."