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| DATE | 2020-11-19 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Virus resolution just not soon enough - but on a
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wsj.com
Opinion | About Those Trump Vaccine Predictions
James Freeman
7-9 minutes
Updated Nov. 18, 2020 5:36 pm ET
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President Donald J. Trump delivers an update last week on Operation Warp
Speed, a public/private partnership initiated by the Trump
administration to facilitate and accelerate the development,
manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and
diagnostics.
Photo: chris kleponis/pool/Shutterstock
“Public-private partnership” is usually a Beltway term for cronyism and
the waste of taxpayer resources. But so far it’s hard to argue with the
results of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed to assist the
development and distribution of medical innovations to address Covid-19.
The rapid results must be especially striking to news consumers who were
repeatedly told that the president was wrong in predicting quick
development of a vaccine.
Back in August, Jane C. Timm and Jane Weaver of NBC News reported on the
President’s Republican convention speech:
Fact check: No evidence for Trump’s COVID-19 vaccine claim
“In recent months, our nation, and the entire planet, has been
struck by a new and powerful invisible enemy. Like those brave Americans
before us, we are meeting this challenge. We are delivering lifesaving
therapies, and will produce a vaccine before the end of the year, or
maybe even sooner!” Trump claimed on Thursday night.
This is largely false... The president boasts of lifesaving
therapies, but critics argue there isn’t enough evidence to back up this
claim... There is also no evidence that an effective vaccine will be
delivered by the end of the year.
Thank goodness these “fact checkers” didn’t have a firm grasp of the
facts. The Journal’s Jared Hopkins reports today:
Pfizer Inc. said Wednesday it will ask health regulators to
authorize its experimental Covid-19 vaccine within days, after reporting
the shot was 95% effective in its pivotal study and showing signs of
being safe.
The company’s plans mean the shot is on track to go into
distribution by the end of the year, if the regulators permit.
As for therapies, Mr. Hopkins notes:
During the current pandemic, the FDA has authorized for emergency
use several drugs, including the antiviral remdesivir from Gilead
Sciences Inc. and recently a Covid-19 antibody drug from Eli Lilly & Co.
And of course Pfizer’s new innovation is not the only vaccine showing
great promise. The Journal’s Peter Loftus reported on Monday:
Moderna Inc. said its experimental coronavirus vaccine was 94.5%
effective at protecting people from Covid-19 in an early look at pivotal
study results, the second vaccine to hit a key milestone in U.S. testing...
Moderna said it plans to ask federal health authorities by early
December to clear the vaccine.
If greenlighted, the shot could go into distribution that month,
making it one of the first Covid-19 vaccines to go into distribution in
the U.S., where reported coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are surging.
The Moderna news arrived exactly two weeks after the Atlantic magazine’s
publication of an article titled “All the President’s Lies About the
Coronavirus: An unfinished compendium of Trump’s overwhelming dishonesty
during a national emergency.” Author Christian Paz included on his
dubious list moments when Mr. Trump said a vaccine would be ready “soon”
and also a comment Mr. Trump made on September 29:
The claim: “We’re weeks away from a vaccine,” Trump said at the
first debate.
There’s an old saying in the newspaper business: No one ever gets fired
for calling President Trump a liar. Actually that’s not an old saying,
but it should give the media industry’s “fact checkers” comfort that
certain mistakes may be tolerated more than others.
The Washington Post has a regular column called “Fact Checker” and an
edition published the same day as the Atlantic piece is also not aging
gracefully. The Posties wrote:
Trump says a vaccine will be ready in weeks, while his
administration’s experts are much more cautious and say it won’t be
ready till next year.
What would we do without experts? In this season of thanks we can all be
grateful that Mr. Trump was pushing them to exceed the usual glacial
pace of Washington’s health bureaucracies. A recent Journal editorial noted:
The Trump FDA’s Covid innovation has been providing real-time
feedback and clear guidance to drug and vaccine makers about its
expectations. This has helped therapies and vaccines advance and cut
Phase 3 trials from three years to a few months. These reforms are one
of the success stories of the federal Covid response.
Don’t be surprised if the media’s “fact checkers” now attempt to explain
away their erroneous and unfair coverage by saying that they simply
meant that even if a vaccine was developed it would still take a long
time to distribute.
Mr. Trump’s program could soon be taking away that excuse, too. Keith
Zubrow of CBS News recently reported on Gen. Gustave Perna, the career
U.S. Army supply officer appointed to lead Operation Warp Speed. The
general’s team has been stockpiling supplies of several vaccine
candidates awaiting FDA approval. According to Mr. Zubrow:
Perna and his team are ready for when that authorization hopefully
arrives. He told 60 Minutes contributor and CBS News national security
correspondent David Martin that vaccine doses are ready to ship in as
little as 24 hours after the FDA grants approval.
The vaccines and the kits needed to administer the shots will be
transported through partnerships Operation Warp Speed has forged with
private companies including FedEx, UPS, and the medical supply firm
McKesson.
“My goal [is] tens of millions [of vaccine doses] in December
hopefully and we expand into hundreds of millions [of doses in] January,
February, March,” Perna said to 60 Minutes.
Whether or not “fact checkers” ever acknowledge it, the rapid pace of
vaccine development predicted by the president is a benefit to people
everywhere.
***
Mr. Freeman is the co-author of “The Cost: Trump, China and American
Revival.”
***
Follow James Freeman on Twitter.
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To suggest items, please email best-at-wsj.com.
(Teresa Vozzo helps compile Best of the Web.)
***
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