Majority of Americans want Trump – or President Biden – to take a Covid vaccine before it’s deployed

A majority of Americans want Donald Trump to take a possible coronavirus vaccine before anyone else – or whomever is president by the time federal agencies might authorise one for use.

The president initially said he hoped the private-sector drug companies working on a Covid-blocking medication before Election Day. But with voters heading to the polls in under two weeks, he has revised that projection until by the end of the year or early next year.

Federal health officials say it could take all of 2021 to get a vaccine fully tested, proven and through the approval process. From there, it would have to be mass-produced and deployed – first to vulnerable groups like seniors before becoming available to all Americans.

Whenever – or if – that happens, over half of those surveyed by JL Partners and The Independent (54 per cent) said they want the sitting president to take it before anyone else.

Should Mr Trump lose his battle for a second term, a 2021 authorisation and national deployment would mean Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden would be the one respondents would except to take a vaccine first.

Mr Trump in July sent mixed signals about taking an inoculation first, but did say he is willing to do so – despite what he fears would be political risk for himself.

“Well, you know the way it works,” Mr Trump told Dr Marc Siegel on Fox News. “If I’m the first one they’ll say, ‘He’s so selfish, he wanted to get the vaccine first.’ And then other people would say, ‘Hey, that’s a brave thing to do.'”

“I would absolutely if they wanted me to and they thought it was right, I’d take it first or I’d take it last,” the president said.

But he never defined who “they” are.

“Either way I’d lose on that one, right?” he added. “If I don’t take it they’ll say, ‘He doesn’t believe in the program.’ But whatever I think is best whatever we all agree is best, I would certainly do that.”

The president was, as always, focused mostly on himself. At campaign rallies lately, he has made bold promises about when an inoculation drug might be ready.

“We will have 100m vaccine doses before the end of the year. Maybe sooner than that, maybe substantially before,” he said Tuesday night in Erie, Pennsylvania. “Biden will delay therapies, postpone the vaccine, prolong the pandemic, close your schools, shut down our country, and by the way, Pennsylvania's been shut down long enough.”

For his part, Mr Biden and other Democrats have criticized the president and his team for, in their view, rushing work on a vaccine. They are concerned the Trump administration could make millions sick – not from the virus, but from a drug intended to innoculate Americans from it.

During a town hall last week hosted by ABC News, Mr Biden said if Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease official who is in another war of words with the president amid his latest media blitz, signs off on a vaccine, “I’d take it.”