--- title: Trump Claims Coronavirus Will ‘Fade Away’ Despite 20,000 Daily Cases description: The coronavirus pandemic will “fade away” even without a vaccine, but researchers are close to developing one anyhow, President Donald Trump said. canonical: https://time.com/5855541/trump-coronavirus-fade-away/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-06-18T09:26:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:52:03.844Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Trump Claims Coronavirus Will ‘Fade Away’ – as U.S. Sees 20,000 New Cases a Day og:description: "It’s going to fade away, but having a vaccine would be really nice and that’s going to happen” og:url: https://time.com/5855541/trump-coronavirus-fade-away/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt39caca08593c0e92/698a0f7497cdff0ab76bae08/trump-coronavirus-fade.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: President Trump Speaks At West Point Graduation Ceremony og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Trump Claims Coronavirus Will ‘Fade Away’ – as U.S. Sees 20,000 New Cases a Day twitter:description: "It’s going to fade away, but having a vaccine would be really nice and that’s going to happen” twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt39caca08593c0e92/698a0f7497cdff0ab76bae08/trump-coronavirus-fade.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Claims Coronavirus Will ‘Fade Away’ – as U.S. Sees 20,000 New Cases a Day > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: President Trump Says If U.S. COVID-19 Tests Ended 'We'd Have Very Few Cases' [Watch (HLS stream): President Trump Says If U.S. COVID-19 Tests Ended 'We'd Have Very Few Cases'](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Vy9BPwr9.m3u8) (0:45)  _Published 2020-06-17. Trump’s comment Monday was part of a broader administration effort to play down the pandemic, a push that public health experts and Democratic officials worry is sending a dangerous message to the American public._ by [Josh Wingrove / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Josh Wingrove / Bloomberg Contributor Jun 18, 2020 9:26 AM UTC  President Donald Trump gives his speech at the commencement ceremony for army cadets on June 13, 2020 in West Point, New York. President Donald Trump gives his speech at the commencement ceremony for army cadets on June 13, 2020 in West Point, New York.David Dee Delgado–Getty Images by [Josh Wingrove / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Josh Wingrove / Bloomberg Contributor Jun 18, 2020 9:26 AM UTC The coronavirus pandemic will “fade away” even without a vaccine, but researchers are close to developing one anyhow, President Donald Trump said. “We’re very close to a vaccine and we’re very close to therapeutics, really good therapeutics,” Trump said Wednesday night in a television interview with Fox News. “But even without that, I don’t even like to talk about that, because it’s fading away, it’s going to fade away, but having a vaccine would be really nice and that’s going to happen.” Trump’s comments come as the U.S. continues to see 20,000 new daily cases from a pandemic that so far has killed 117,000 people in the country. The president has called for easing restrictions on public activity that were imposed to slow the spread of the virus but that plunged the U.S. into recession. Anthony Fauci, the head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has said a vaccine could be ready by the end of the year or the first few months of 2021\. More than 130 vaccines against coronavirus are in development, according to the World Health Organization. But Fauci, a member of the White House’s mostly mothballed coronavirus task force, also [warned last week](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-10/covid-pandemic-is-worst-nightmare-far-from-over-fauci-says) that the infection won’t “burn itself out with mere public health measures.” “We’re going to need a vaccine for the entire world, billions and billions of doses,” Fauci said in online comments on June 10 to the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, an industry group. The U.S. recently passed the 2-million mark for cases, although earlier epicenters like New York and New Jersey have seen the pandemic tail off after aggressive action to shut down their economies. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5855541/trump-coronavirus-fade-away/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5855541/trump-coronavirus-fade-away/"},"headline":"President Trump Claims Coronavirus Will ‘Fade Away’ – as U.S. Sees 20,000 New Cases a Day","datePublished":"2020-06-18T09:26:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:52:03.844Z","description":"\"It’s going to fade away, but having a vaccine would be really nice and that’s going to happen”","url":"https://time.com/5855541/trump-coronavirus-fade-away/","keywords":["COVID-19","wire","overnight"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt39caca08593c0e92/698a0f7497cdff0ab76bae08/trump-coronavirus-fade.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Josh Wingrove / Bloomberg"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt39caca08593c0e92/698a0f7497cdff0ab76bae08/trump-coronavirus-fade.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Trump Speaks At West Point Graduation Ceremony","caption":"President Trump Speaks At West Point Graduation Ceremony","creditText":"David Dee Delgado–Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/covid-19/","name":"COVID-19"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5855541/trump-coronavirus-fade-away/","name":"President Trump Claims Coronavirus Will ‘Fade Away’ – as U.S. Sees 20,000 New Cases a Day"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"President Trump Says If U.S. COVID-19 Tests Ended 'We'd Have Very Few Cases'","description":"Trump’s comment Monday was part of a broader administration effort to play down the pandemic, a push that public health experts and Democratic officials worry is sending a dangerous message to the American public.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Vy9BPwr9/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2020-06-17T13:05:49.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Vy9BPwr9.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5855541/trump-coronavirus-fade-away/","duration":"PT45S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5855541/trump-coronavirus-fade-away/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```