President Donald Trump has promised the US will reopen “vaccine or no vaccine” as he announced a plan to deliver a coronavirus jab by year’s end.
He likened the vaccine project, dubbed “Operation Warp Speed”, to the World War Two effort to produce the world’s first nuclear weapons.
But Mr Trump emphasised: “Vaccine or no vaccine, we’re back.”
Without widespread testing, experts have said a vaccine would be needed to safely lift lockdown measures.
Speaking at a White House Rose Garden news conference on Friday, Mr Trump said the project would begin with studies on 14 promising vaccine candidates for accelerated research and approval.
“That means big and it means fast,” he said of Operation Warp Speed. “A massive scientific, industrial and logistical endeavour unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project.”
Mr Trump named an Army general and a former healthcare executive to lead the operation, a partnership between the government and private sector to find and distribute a vaccine.
Moncef Slaoui, who previously led the vaccines division at pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, will lead the mission, while Gen Gustave Perna, who oversees distribution for the US Army, is to serve as chief operating officer.
Speaking after Mr Trump, Mr Slaoui said he was “confident” that a “few hundred million doses of vaccine” will be delivered by the end of 2020.