Ledger · First term · № 148

A COVID-19 vaccine before Election Day

Late
“[paraphrase] We'll have a vaccine before a very special date — I'm talking about November 3rd.”
Promised
, White House press conference, Labor Day
Stated deadline
“before November 3, 2020” → November 3, 2020
Re-promised
10 times with a fresh deadline
Topic
COVID-19
Era
First term

What happened

No vaccine was authorized before the election. Pfizer announced interim efficacy results on November 9, 2020, six days after Election Day. The FDA granted emergency use authorization to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on December 11, 2020 and to Moderna's on December 18, 2020.

Sources

  1. Did Trump promise a COVID-19 vaccine by Election Day? Snopes, Sep 8, 2020
  2. Fact check: Will there be a coronavirus vaccine by November? CNN, Aug 7, 2020