WASHINGTON _ Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious disease expert on the White House coronavirus task force, pledged on Thursday to publicly oppose any effort by the Trump administration to rush an announcement of a COVID-19 vaccine by the November election unless the medicine has been proven "safe and scientifically sound."
In an interview with McClatchy, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he disapproved of the use of the term "Operation Warp Speed" � the name of the federal vaccine development project _ because it incorrectly implies that critical scientific benchmarks for safety and effectiveness might be sidestepped in a rushed government effort to achieve a vaccine.
And he offered a different view from an op-ed published this week by Vice President Mike Pence, the head of the coronavirus task force, which dismissed concerns over an increase in coronavirus cases in several U.S. states as "overblown."
