COVID-19 vaccine latest flashpoint in White House campaign
08 September, 2020
The prospect of a vaccine to shield Americans from coronavirus infection emerged Monday as a point of contention in the White House race as President Donald Trump accused Democrats of “disparaging” for political gain a vaccine he repeatedly has said could be available prior to the election.
“It's so dangerous for our country, what they state, however the vaccine will be very safe and incredibly effective,” the president pledged at a White House news conference.
Trump leveled the accusation a day after Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democrats' vice presidential candidate, said she “would not trust his word” on obtaining the vaccine. “I would trust the word of public health experts and scientists, however, not Donald Trump,” Harris said.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden amplified Harris' comments Monday after he was asked if he'd get yourself a vaccine for COVID-19, the condition caused by the novel coronavirus. Biden said he'd have a vaccine “tomorrow”want to see what the scientists have to say, too.
Biden said Trump has said “so a lot of things that are not true, I'm worried if we do have a really good vaccine, people will be reluctant to take it. So he's undermining public confidence."
Still, the former vice president said, “EASILY could get a vaccine tomorrow I’d do it, if it could cost me the election I’d do it. We desire a vaccine and we are in need of it now.”
The back-and-forth over a coronavirus vaccine played out as three of the candidates fanned out across the country on Labor Day, the original start of two-month sprint to the election. Harris and Vice President Mike Pence campaigned in Wisconsin and Biden visited Pennsylvania. Trump added the news headlines conference to a schedule that at first was blank.
Harris, a California Democrat, said in a CNN interview broadcast Sunday that she would not trust a coronavirus vaccine if one were ready towards the end of the entire year because “there's hardly any that we can trust that ... comes out of Donald Trump's mouth.” She argued that scientists will be “muzzled” because Trump is targeted on getting reelected.
Trump dismissed her comments as “reckless anti-vaccine rhetoric" made to detract from your time and effort to quickly ready a vaccine for a disease that has killed nearly 190,000 Americans and infected a lot more than 6 million others, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University.
“She's talking about disparaging a vaccine to ensure that people don't think the achievement was an excellent achievement,” Trump said, answering reporters' questions as he stood at a lectern located at the front end door of the White House on the Pennsylvania Avenue side of the mansion.
“They'll say anything,” he said.
Trump insisted he hasn't said a vaccine could be ready before November, although he said so repeatedly and as recently as Friday.
The president then proceeded to state what he had just denied ever saying.
“What I said is by the finish of the entire year, but I think it might even be sooner that that,” he said about a vaccine. “It may be during the month of October, actually could be before November.”
Under a program Trump calls “Operation Warp Speed,” the target is to have 300 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine in stock by January. He has spent hundreds of vast amounts of dollars on what amounts to an enormous gamble since vaccine development often takes years.
Concerns exist about political influence over development of a vaccine, and whether one produced under this technique will be effective and safe.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert and an associate of the White House coronavirus task force, told CNN last week that it's unlikely but “not impossible” that a vaccine could win approval in October, rather than November or December.
Fauci added that he's “confident” a vaccine would not be approved for Americans unless it was both effective and safe.
Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the meals and Drug Administration, has said the agency wouldn't normally cut corners since it evaluates vaccines, but would try to expedite its work. He told the Financial Times last week that it may be “appropriate" to approve a vaccine before clinical trials were complete if the huge benefits outweighed the risks.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, meanwhile, has given assurances that Trump “won't at all sacrifice safety” with regards to a vaccine. And executives of five top pharmaceutical companies pledged that no COVID-19 vaccines or treatments will be approved, even for emergency use, without proof they are safe and effective.
Some concerns were sparked by a letter dated Aug 27 in which Dr Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, asked governors to greatly help government contractor McKesson Corp. make certain vaccine distribution facilities are ready to go by Nov 1.
Redfield didn't say a vaccine would be ready by then.
Three COVID-19 vaccines are undergoing final-stage, or Phase 3, clinical trials in the U.S. Each study is enrolling about 30,000 persons who'll get two shots, three weeks apart, and then will be monitored for coronavirus infections and side effects for anywhere from a week to two years.
Source: japantoday.com
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