US President Donald Trump says he is ready to take vaccine against the novel coronavirus first, or last, if people want him to.
Trump said he would lose either way, if he takes it first, or last, because people would think he is selfish in the first case, or does not believe in its effectiveness if he is the last to do so.
"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'", Trump said on Fox News on Wednesday. "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 also shared he was more willing to see therapeutics developed for treating COVID-19.
"You tell me, but I almost would prefer the therapeutics even first", he said. "You go into a hospital, you make people better. But we're doing very well with remdesivir and other things. The steroids are turning out to be great, plasma is turning out to be really good."
The experimental vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech still needs to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. The companies are currently in the earlier stages of human trials. If they turn out successful, then 100 million doses could be made already by Christmas.
After receiving the first 100 million doses, the US government will pay BioNTech and Pfizer $1.95 billion. The US will be able to acquire up to an additional 500 million doses in 2021.
The United States remains the country worst hit by COVID-19. As of today, it has registered more than 3.9 million coronavirus cases and at least 143,147 virus-related deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University count.