How quickly will we have a COVID-19 vaccine, and how will we know it's safe?

Americans have been getting a lot of confusing messages lately — including from President Trump — about when a COVID-19 vaccine will be ready.

Trump has said a vaccine could be ready this month, but Pfizer officials have said only that they’ll know more about the timing of a vaccine by the end of October. Pfizer and German company BioNTech are working on one of the leading candidates for a U.S. vaccine. The other is being developed by Moderna, which has said its vaccine won’t be widely available until March. 

While the companies are making progress on the vaccines, figuring out how to deploy them once they’re ready could be complicated. And will enough people voluntarily get vaccinated to stop the spread of COVID-19?

On Monday at 9 a.m., MPR News host Kerri Miller spoke with a vaccine researcher and an epidemiologist about the latest efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. 

Guests:

Kumi Smith is an assistant professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health at the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Greg Poland is the director of the Vaccine Research Group at Mayo Clinic.

To listen to the full conversation you can use the audio player above.

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