U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that he has asked pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. to speed up work on producing a vaccine to combat the novel strain of the COVID-19.
“We have asked them to accelerate whatever they are doing in terms of a vaccine,” Trump said this at the White House.
Trump also said he would meet this afternoon with the pharmaceutical companies’ executives to discuss addressing the novel coronavirus.
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The president noted the novel coronavirus outbreak has become a very big subject but added that the U.S. is doing “very well.”
“We are working very hard with the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, with everybody,” Trump said.
“We are also working with other countries to help them because they really have a fear of the unknown.”
Trump said those infected by the novel coronavirus in the U.S. are in good shape, adding that “we have some additional people that were reported.”
On Monday, the authorities in the U.S. state of Washington confirmed that a second person infected with the novel coronavirus in the U.S. has died.