And these data made me feel even more confident that we will be able to deliver a few hundred million doses of vaccine by the end of 2020. We will deliver by the end of this year a vaccine at scale to treat the American People and our partners abroad. We all certainly hope so. And yet at this event announcing the leaders of this vaccine effort, President Trump seemed to undermine the very importance of a vaccine in some ways. Vaccine or no vaccine, were back. But how are we back . The u. S. Death toll continues to rise. It remains likely that we could lose more than 60,000 more americans over the next two months. Not to mention of course the hundreds of thousands infected, some of whom may be scarred for life. Now, yes, the trend of new cases is generally going down. And thats great news. But there is no Health Expert who thinks the u. S. Is out of the woods. Quite the contrary. Under what metric is the u. S. , quote, back . Cnns Kaitlan Collins asked the president that very question. Reporter unveiling his vaccine effort in the rose garden today, President Trump said the country would return to normal with or without one. I just want to make something clear. Its very important. Vaccine or no vaccine, were back. And were starting the process. Reporter asked what he meant by that, the president offered this explanation. We think were going to have a vaccine in the pretty near future, and if we do, were going to really be a big step ahead. And if we dont, well be like so many other cases where you had a problem come in, it will go away, at some point it will go away. Reporter the president was formally announcing the leaders of operation warp speed, his administrations effort to develop and distribute a vaccine. It is going to be a herculean task. Reporter but at one point the president seemed to downplay how critical a vaccine would be. Though many Health Experts have viewed an effective vaccine as the only way life can truly return to normal, the president made clear he doesnt agree. Its not solely vaccinebased. Other things have never had a vaccine and they go away. Reporter he also repeated his hope that a vaccine can be ready by the end of the year. Some Health Experts have said thats unrealistic. And yesterday the administrations former vaccine chief, rick bright, who was pushed out of his job, thinks it will not happen that soon. 12 to 18 months is an aggressive schedule. Reporter the president said he hopes a full vaccine will be ready by the end of the year and available to the general public, not just for emergency use. Do you mean a fully approved vaccine for everyone, the full public, or a partial vaccine for emergency use . No, were looking for a full vaccine for everyone that wants to get it. Not Everyone Wants to get it. Were looking at a full vaccine. Reporter nearly all the guests in the rose garden today were Wearing Masks but onstage, some of the president s top officials were and some werent, including the president. I told them, i gave them the option, they could wear it or not, so you can blame it on me. Reporter sources say trump and his aides have questioned whether the coronavirus death toll is being overcounted. Today the president said he assumes the numbers are correct. Do you think its accurate or higher than that . Or lower than that. I dont know. I dont know. Those are the numbers that are being reported. I assume theyre correct. Reporter now, jake, you may have noticed the Vice President was not in the rose garden today. Were told by sources that out of an abundance of caution hes still been keeping his distance from the president for the last few days after one of his top aides contracted coronavirus. Jake, you may have heard that dull honking sound over all the president s comments. Those are truckers out on constitutional avenue. And today in the rose garden you really couldnt ignore them. The president said they were protesting in favor of him. Thats not true. Theyre protesting because they say theres such economic strain and they want fair pay. Kaitlan collins, thank you so much, appreciate it. Joining me to discuss, cnn chief medical correspondent sanjay gupta. So much to discuss. The president and the Vaccine Task Force are clearly optimistic about the development and rollout of a vaccine as early as december or january. Obviously we all hope that to be true. But does it seem plausible to you . Its tough to call it plausible. I mean, it would be unprecedented, jake. And i totally agree with your sentiment, everyone is hopeful about this solvrt of thing. We are talking about different types of vaccines, vaccines that have never been used before. Its really hard to give a context here. We talk about the fact that some of these vaccines can take a decade to make. Those are different types of vaccines. The type of vaccine theyre talking about that i think moncef is talking about, is a messenger rna vaccine. Basically its the genetic blueprint of a part of the virus. You stick that in the body and the body then makes more of that and then makes the antibodies to fight that. So your body turns into a vaccine factory. If it works, theyre already going into phase ii with this, if it works, eventually phase iii by the end of the year, the idea that it would be manufactured, distributed, available for everybody by the end of the year just seems hard to believe. Again, everybody wants that. But i dont know how that would work. We talked to one of the guys working on a vaccine and he said his biggest concern is the manufacturing capacity for whatever they come up with to make 330 million doses of it, it would be quite an order. The president said Something Else today that i want to get your views on. He said, vaccine or no vaccine, we are back. I dont exactly know how one could say that given the continued death toll, the continued increase in cases. What do you make of that . Well, jake, you and i have been talking about this for so many months now. I remember talking to you on the day the 15day pause went into effect, and some 75 people had died by that point, 4,000 infections in the country. At that point the decision was made to put the country in a pause because of what was happening. I dont know i mean, the virus is still there. The virus hasnt changed, its still contagious, its still spreading in the community. Why now when you look at the numbers on the screen do you think, okay, now as a good time to sort of be back, open things up . Presumably thats what he means. Again, we say this stuff and people say, youre pessimistic, you know, you dont want the country to reopen. Of course i want the country to reopen. Im in my basement like most of the people in the country right now. But i think that, how do you justify opening things back up when the numbers are so far worse than they were when you decided to close things down . We need testing, we need to see downward trends for 14 days, we follow these numbers day by day and people get excited when they go down or up for a couple of days. Thats why you look for trends. We dont see a positive trend reliably and we dont have enough testing. Ive been talking to health officials, as you have, about their concerns about reopening too quickly, acting as if this were over. President trump said were back. He said this amid images of packed bars in wisconsin. President trump went so for as to retweet this man in a florida bar. Take a listen. Im at a bar restaurant. Were all having a good time. Not a single face mask. Its not that bad, guys. I mean, he goes on to say, you know, wouldnt want the copies in tcopy commies in the blue states to see us. Theyre not Wearing Masks, theyre not doing social distancing. The president retweeted that. Does that concern you . Of course it concerns me. Its not that bad . What does the guy think it was going to look like . You cant see the virus. Its contagious. Its spreading out there. When youre wearing a mask, youre not doing it to protect yourself but because youre trying to protect others. The entire way we as a society have decided to look at risk, what we quantify as risk or how we quantify risk itself, is totally dinner nofferent now. The people at those bars, what i think, and what a lot of people who are in Public Health think, is that you are then moving back to your homes, youre moving back to your communities, youre potentially taking that virus with you. If one person in that crowded bar setting had the virus, it could have spread. Weve shown how one person can spread it to nine people within an hour in these various studies. Then they go home to their families. That is the beginning of a cluster. Its a very hard thing to control. And then you have to start going back into lockdown mode. You want to do this slowly so you can actually be on top of it and not go into cluster or exponential growth. These things can be avoided for the time being. I want that as well, i would love to be with that guy, wherever he was. Were not ready yet. We lived through this before in february and march when we were saying the president is not facing up to the risk here. And i dont know what kind of message people are getting. And now we have almost 87,000 people dead, not directly attributable to President Trump, but obviously we need to have our leaders taking this seriously. Sanjay, stand by, i want to ask you about our next story after we run it. After the Trump Administration promised a vaccine soon, there may be no way for all americans to get it. Thats the conclusion of a new cnn investigation. Thats next. Stay with us for that. Plus what if china develops a vaccine first . President trump responded to that, thats coming up. vo what does it mean to be americas most Reliable Network . It means helping those who serve stay connected to their families. And now verizon wants to give them something back. Our best pricing ever. 30 per line for all nurses, teachers, first responders, military, and their families. Not for a few months, but for as long as they need. Plus, up to 700 off the oneplus 8. Because the people we rely on deserve a network they can rely on. Im a talking dog. The other issue. Oh. Im scratching like crazy. Youve got some allergic itch with skin inflammation. Apoquel can work on that itch in as little as 4 hours, whether its a new or chronic problem. And apoquels treated over 7 million dogs. Nice. And. 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When you buy one on the subway app. To get back to normal again. For hospitals and at ctca, we arent waiting either. Were still focused on providing worldclass cancer care. Because cancer isnt just what we do, its all we do. Call now. Were back with our health lead today. President trump this afternoon addressed how his administration is preparing for the moment a vaccine is ready for use. This includes ramping up production of supplies needed for distribution such as cold storage, glass vials, needles, syringes, ready to go. When a vaccine is ready, the u. S. Government will use every plane, truck, available to distribute it to the American People as quickly as possible. As cnns drew griffin reports for us now, Health Experts are hoping the federal government has learned its lesson after disastrous shortages of personal gear plagued the nations hospitals earlier this year. Reporter if the vaccine for covid19 were to come today, there would be no way for all of us to get it. There are just not enough needles and syringes. I dont want to be in a situation where we cant deliver those doses because we dont have syringes and we dont have needles and we dont have the basic supplies to deliver that many doses of the vaccine. Reporter Michigan Democratic senator gary peters first sounded the alarm last year. The pandemic only heightened his fears. And last week he sent a letter to Vice President mike pence and hhs secretary alex azar, urging the federal government to take immediate steps to ensure america is prepared. We need to do it as soon as possible. Reporter a similar complaint by rick bright, the demoted leader of a key federal agency that develops vaccines, saying his warnings about the need for needles and syringes had been ignored. Bright may have been pushed aside but in testimony before congress yesterday, bright suggested someone in the federal government may have been listening. I learned that they placed an order, the first order for needles and syringes on may 1. Were the amounts adequate . I believe it was for 320 million needles and sir innyrin. And could you describe the situation if every american doesnt have access to the vaccine due to a supply shortage . That situation would be catastrophic. The decisions have not been made yet, who to vaccinate first, how to identify those individuals and stretch those limited supplies appropriately. Reporter three contracts for Vaccine Supplies awarded in the past few weeks totaling nearly 250 million. The largest by the department of defense for the u. S. Based production of 100 million prefilled syringes by year end 2020 with the ultimate production goal of over 500 million prefilled syringes in 2021. Sean paul, in charge of Disaster Response for one of the countrys largest medical companies, says its enough. Unlike ppe, well be in a much better position. We learned a lot of valuable lessons, and were preparing for the worst in vaccination and being able to administer to the full population if necessary. Reporter that comes with one big caveat. The unknown. Until we have something that is approved by a particular supplier or manufacturer, it will be very challenging for us to prepare for potential shortages on vials, syringes or needles. Reporter if estimates are correct, if the contract is fulfilled, the u. S. Could have the supplies needed to inoculate the population when and if a covid19 vaccine is approved. Drew griffin, cnn, atlanta. Our thanks to drew griffin for that report. Cnns chief medical correspondent sanjay gupta is back with me. Sanjay, the white house is ramping up production of vials and equipment so the u. S. Is prepared if a vaccine is ready to be distributed. But is that goal too ambitious or will the achievement not be able to achieve it . I think were capable of achieving this goal. I think its a question of now recognizing that there might be this demand. There will be this demand for these supplies. And actually making sure were in the process of obtaining those things, which it sounds like from drews piece, a lot of that is happening, which is good. This idea that even before a vaccine is approved, even before its gone through all the phases of trial, that this process is starting, that theyre actually going to start manufacturing the vaccine even if they dont know it works yet because they just want to get ahead of the curve and take some gambles here and make sure the cold storage is available, all the syringes and needles. Some of these vaccines have to be stored at a specific temperature. Distributing them is going to be more challenging because of things like that. Thats the planning that needs to happen now even before a vaccine is ready. Its great that theyre on top of it. I hope it works out. If there are still shortages of the vaccine once its discovered, once its manufactured, how does it get decided who gets the vaccine and who doesnt . You remember the early days of the virus when all sorts of really wealthy people like nba stars and the like were getting tests, where doctors and nurses on the front lines werent able to. Yeah, right. And, you know, who is to say some of that wont happen again. You know, some of that happens when you have scarce resources. But there are entire textbooks about Vaccine Distribution and how you figure out the priorities. Some of it is per capita, by state, figuring out the populations of people. Some of it is figuring out where the virus are circulating, in areas where youve had recent outbreaks, things like that. In particular health care workers, people who are particularly vulnerable, people with preexisting conditions, that make people more likely to contract the infection or get sick from it, those are the people who will be at the front of the line. All right. Dr. Sanjay gupta, thanks again. Learn even more from sanjays podcast, coronavirus fact versus fiction available on cnn. Com or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks as always, sanjay. Coming up, a major spike in one state two weeks after the state reopened as new york citys reopening is extended into june. Well take a look across the country. Stay with us. Tempurpedics mission is to give you truly transformative sleep. So, no more tossing and turning. Because only tempurpedic adapts and responds to your body. So you get deep, uninterrupted sleep. During the tempurpedic summer of sleep, all tempurpedic mattresses are on sale motor . Nope. Not motor . Its pronounced motaur. For those who were born to ride, theres progressive. And ask your doctor about biktarvy. Biktarvy is a complete, onepill, onceaday treatment used for hiv in certain adults. Its not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights hiv to help you get to and stay undetectable. Thats when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. Research shows people who take hiv treatment every day and get to and stay undetectable can no longer transmit hiv through sex. Serious side effects can occur, including kidney problems and kidney failure. Rare, lifethreatening side effects include a buildup of lactic acid and liver problems. Do not take biktarvy if you take dofetilid