The Australian PM is less optimistic than the Hungarian rector: COVID vaccine only in 2021?

Professor Béla Merkely, the rector of the Semmelweis University, said that six different vaccines look very promising and he thinks that by the end of this fall at least one of them will get a green light even in Hungary. Meanwhile, the Australian PM thinks that a coronavirus vaccine will be only available in the first half of 2021.

Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt has said there is “genuine cause for hope and optimism” that a coronavirus vaccine will be available in the first half of 2021. Hunt said on Sunday that he was “quietly becoming more hopeful and more optimistic” about the potential for a vaccine.

His comments came after pharmaceutical giant

AstraZeneca announced that stage three trials of a candidate vaccine developed by the University of Oxford have resumed.

The Australian government earlier in September announced that it reached a deal with AstraZeneca to secure 33.8 million doses of the vaccine if trials prove successful. Hunt said on Sunday that pausing trials to assess if an unexplained illness in a trial participant was related to the vaccine was an “ordinary part of a safeguards process.”
“For us, number one is safety that trumps everything,” he told Sky News Australia. “So these are very heartening steps for Australia, for Australians and for the road out. “There is genuine cause for hope and optimism for Australians on the path to a vaccine.
“Each day I’m quietly becoming more hopeful and more optimistic about the prospect for vaccines