Trump insists coronavirus will 'go away at some point' even without a vaccine

Pandemic be darned, the U.S. is coming back.

That's the message President Trump sent in a Friday press conference where he named two new leaders in America's coronavirus vaccine development project. While Trump said the "Project Warp Speed" team would deliver a vaccine "by the end of the year or shortly thereafter," he also said that "with or without a vaccine, we're back."

Trump has been ready to reopen much of the U.S. for weeks now, even though experts — including those on Trump's own coronavirus task force — warn it could lead to even more deaths without a vaccine or proper safety measures. But even as Trump praised the two new members of the government's vaccination development projects, Dr. Moncef Slaoui and Gen. Gustave Perna, he suggested the U.S. didn't even need the vaccine to get back to business — or to get rid of the coronavirus. "It'll go away at some point," Trump said. "Other things have never had a vaccine, and they go away."

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It's true that some high-profile diseases fade from the public consciousness even without widespread vaccine use. But something like the flu isn't as contagious or as deadly as COVID-19, and so a vaccine is expected to be the only way to ensure the coronavirus' eradication.