Trump promises coronavirus vaccine by late year

US President Donald Trump has promised the US will reopen "vaccine or no vaccine," as he announced an objective to deliver a coronavirus jab by year-end, BBC reported.

He likened the vaccine project, dubbed "Operation Warp Speed", to the World War Two effort to produce the world's first nuclear weapons.

Trump said the project would begin with studies on 14 promising vaccine candidates for accelerated research and approval.

"That means big, and it means fast," he said of Operation Warp Speed.

Trump named an Army general and a former healthcare executive to lead the operation, a partnership between the government and private sector to find and distribute a vaccine.

"I don't want people to think this is all dependent on a vaccine," Trump said. "Vaccine or no vaccine, we're back. And we're starting the process."

"In many cases, they don't have vaccines, and a virus or flu comes, and you fight through it," he added. "Other things have never had a vaccine, and they go away."

As of Friday, more than 1.4 million people in the US have been infected with the coronavirus, and more than 87,000 have died, according to Johns Hipkins university.