A video of US President Donald Trump and a top US pharmaceutical executive speaking at a press conference has been viewed thousands of times in multiple Facebook, Twitter and YouTube posts alongside a claim that it shows them announcing a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, was “ready” to be administered.
Below is a screenshot of the misleading Facebook post:, The caption reads: “Great news! Carona virus vaccine ready. Able to cure patient within 3 hours after injection. Hats off to US Scientists. Right now Trump announced that Roche Medical Company will launch the vaccine next Sunday, and millions of doses are ready from it !!!", COVID-19\xa0has killed more than 18,589\xa0people and infected more than 416,686\xa0others worldwide, according to data from the WHO\xa0on March 26, 2020., The video was also shared alongside the same claim on Facebook here; on Twitter here\xa0and here; and on YouTube here., The claim is false., Trump does not mention that a COVID-19 vaccine is ready to be administered\xa0in the clip\xa0or in the entire March 13 press conference, footage of which\xa0was published on the White House’s official YouTube channel here., , In the clip, Matt Sause, Roche’s North America CEO and president, thanks US regulators for approving his company’s COVID-19 tests and says he is working with federal agencies to deliver the tests to patients nationwide. The company claimed that the tests could provide results in three and a half hours., In the full press conference, Trump makes reference to a vaccine only once, saying that experts are working on developing “a vaccine, which takes a little bit longer because of the test periods and a couple of other reasons.”, While Roche and pharmaceutical companies worldwide are working to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, it has not yet been approved by national or international health bodies., The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states here that there “currently no vaccine to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).” The WHO\xa0states the same here., “To date, there is no vaccine and no specific antiviral medicine to prevent or treat COVID-2019,” the WHO states., , , Copyright © AFP 2017-2020.  All rights reserved.  Users can access and consult this website and use the share features available for personal, private, and non-commercial purposes.  Any other use, in particular any reproduction, communication to the public or distribution of the content of this website, in whole or in part, for any other purpose and/or by any other means, without a specific licence agreement signed with AFP, is strictly prohibited.  The subject matter depicted or included via links within the Fact Checking content is provided to the extent necessary for correct understanding of the verification of the information concerned.  AFP has not obtained any rights from the authors or copyright owners of this third party content and shall incur no liability in this regard.  AFP and its logo are registered trademarks.
US President Donald Trump did not announce a coronavirus vaccine was 'ready' | AFP Fact Check