German Research Minister Urges Public Not to Expect COVID-19 Vaccine Until Middle of 2021

BERLIN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th July, 2020) A safe and effective vaccine against COVID-19 is likely not to be expected until the middle of 2021, the country's research minister Anja Karliczek said at a press briefing on Wednesday.

"Researchers are now working with extreme speed, but failure in these sorts of projects is always possible. We should not expect a miracle and, as before, we should assume that a vaccine available for widespread use will be ready by the middle of next year," Karliczek stated.

An uptick in cases has been observed in Germany, as the country's Robert Koch Institute registered 684 new positive tests earlier in the day, up from 633 on Tuesday. The research minister said these trends show that the pandemic is far from over.

"Almost everywhere in the world, including Germany, the number of coronavirus disease cases is growing, unfortunately, at an alarming scale. This once again shows that we are in the middle of a pandemic," Karliczek said.

The research minister added that three German biotech firms, BioNtech, CureVac, and IDT Biologika, are receiving government funding to speed up vaccine development and clinical trials.

Since the start of the pandemic, Germany's Robert Koch Institute has confirmed 206,926 cases of COVID-19. The European country's death toll currently stands at 9,128, a rise of six over the preceding 24 hours.