Hi, I'm Dan Pramak and welcome to Axios Recap.

Today's Friday, July 24th.

Tensions between the U.S. and China are up, stocks are down, and we're focused on if getting

a coronavirus vaccine in 2020 is realistic.

Americans seem to be resigning themselves to the idea that life will not get back to normal until we have an approved and widely distributed vaccine for COVID-19.

The question then is when that will be.

Here's what President Trump had to say about it earlier this month.

We were in track to produce a vaccine in record time, and very, very soon. It's going to be

announced, I believe, very, very soon. Here's Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin this past Monday.

We're going to make sure that we have a vaccine by the end of the year for emergency use.

Here's the reality.

We just don't know.

We can't know.

Not only because we've never tried to ramp up vaccine development so quickly before,

but also because only two vaccine candidates are moving into phase three clinical trials

right now, which means we are still months away, at best, from anything

conclusive about efficacy or safety.

Last week, we discussed the positive data disclosed by Moderna, which has the vaccine furthest

along, but that came with a caveat that the vaccine hadn't yet been tested on anyone

over 55 years of age. The bottom line, optimism may be the only way

for us to get through this pandemic without losing our collective sanity, but it can't be what we use

as the foundation for future economic or educational planning. Let's go deeper on this with Tom

...