As the number of coronavirus cases and deaths continues to surge in the United States, President Donald Trump drove a winning lap on Tuesday, recognizing his administration’s Operation Warp Speed program as a contribution to the rapid development of a vaccine.
“Nobody thought that it was possible, even remotely, to do what we did in less than nine months. Something that – just not even conceivable, “said Trump on Tuesday in the White House. “And we took a lot of heat when we said this is our goal.”
Trump, who has been heavily criticized for his handling of the pandemic, played a video at the beginning of the event highlighting a litany from television speakers that his claim that a vaccine would be ready by the end of 2020 was impossible.
“Of course they’ll say now, we always told you it was, but we made them say a little differently, but it was amazing and it will end the pandemic. It will end the pandemic, “said Trump.
The president’s remarks come amid an increase in coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the United States. The number of infections confirmed daily exceeded 200,000 for the first time last week and 102,148 people with COVID-19 were hospitalized on Monday, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
The US has confirmed more than 15 million cases and over 285,000 deaths, the highest numbers in the world, according to a record by Johns Hopkins University.
Trump also signed an ordinance Tuesday giving Americans priority access to the COVID-19 vaccines that the U.S. government is supposed to receive and distribute. However, it is unclear how exactly the Executive Ordinance will work, and as Dr. Moncef Slaoui, a top Operation Warp Speed official, was asked Tuesday morning for details about Trump’s executive order and why it is needed, he said he did not know.
“To be honest, I don’t know. And to be honest, I’m staying out of it. I can’t comment. I literally don’t know, ”Slaoui told ABC News ahead of the White House event.
I asked Moncef Slaoui, Chief Scientific Advisor to Operation Warp Speed, to explain Trump’s order on the vaccine executive.
“To be honest, I don’t know. And to be honest, I’m staying out of it. I can’t comment. I literally don’t know. “
– GeorgeStephanopoulos (@GStephanopoulos) December 8, 2020
Trump’s comments follow a report in the New York Times that found that Pfizer, which is developing a vaccine, cannot ship more than 100 million doses of its vaccines to the United States due to commitments to other nations.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported that Pfizer offered to sell up to 200 million cans to the U.S. over the summer, which would cover 100 million Americans, but the Trump administration turned down the offer. The White House insists Pfizer and other vaccine manufacturers receive enough doses to immunize all Americans who want the vaccine by the end of June 2021.
“We are committed to having enough vaccine doses to immunize the entire population by mid-2021. We remain confident that this will be the case,” Slaoui told Fox News.
Pfizer and another vaccine developer, Moderna, were absent on Tuesday as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is reviewing emergency applications for their vaccines. FDA official Peter Marks was in attendance, and a senior administrative officer said Monday that Marks’ presence is the reason the drug makers weren’t invited.
Attendees also included executives from companies that will be involved in vaccine distribution, such as pharmacy chains CVS Health and Walgreens Boots Alliance, drug distributor McKesson, and parcel delivery companies United Parcel Service and FedEx.
Following his remarks, Trump was asked by a reporter about the current surge in cases and his message to the American people about traveling for the upcoming vacation. The president briefly referred to guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) before re-announcing the vaccine.
“CDC publishes their guidelines and they are very important guidelines, but I think I think the vaccine was our target. That was number one because that’s how it ended. “
When asked why members of President-elect Joe Biden’s team weren’t invited to attend Tuesday’s event, given that the Biden administration will oversee most of the distribution over the next year, Trump took the opportunity to continue to go on without evidence insist that the elections still take place yet to be decided.
“We have to see who the next government is because we won in these swing states and there were terrible things that were going on. So we have to see who the next administration is, “Trump said on the same day that states had to confirm their election results ahead of next week’s electoral college meetings, beginning the final phase of the presidential election process.
“And hopefully the next administration will be the Trump administration because you can’t steal hundreds of thousands of votes,” he continued, referring to repeatedly debunked claims. “You can’t have fraud and deception and all the things that they did.”
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