Warp Speed chief predicts ‘significant decrease’ in deaths

The leader of the White House’s effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine has predicted that by the end of January, there will be a “significant decrease” in deaths among the nation’s elderly, as high-risk populations in the United States receive vaccinations.

Moncef Slaoui, chief science adviser to Operation

Warp Speed, said he expects independent advisers to the Food and Drug Administration to recommend emergency authorization for the vaccine developed by Pfizer and German biotechnology company BioNTech when the panel meets Thursday. The FDA is expected to issue the authorization soon after that. Pfizer’s vaccine is the first in line for approval in the United States.

Biotechnology company Moderna also has filed for emergency authorization of its coronavirus vaccine.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said that if the FDA panel recommends authorization of the Pfizer vaccine later this week, people could start to receive shots “within days.”

But assuming any coronavirus vaccine is authorized, it will take months before vaccinations have any effect on the state of the pandemic in the United States, which is facing a dire surge in cases. Daily infections and hospitalization levels are reaching new highs and deaths are climbing as experts warn that the worst days may still lie ahead. Hospitals, already slammed, could see worsening numbers in coming weeks as a result of interactions during Thanksgiving, experts warn.

A federal advisory panel recommended last week that the first coronavirus vaccine doses be given to an estimated 21 million health-care workers and 3 million residents and staff in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

During an interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” Slaoui said vaccinations may start to have an impact on infection counts for “the most susceptible people” in January and February.

In a separate interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” he predicted that most of the “highly susceptible population,” about 100 million people, could be covered by vaccines by the middle of March.

“I am hopeful that, by the end of the month of January, we should already see quite a significant decrease in the mortality and severe morbidity associated in the elderly population,” he said on CNN. “There are, of course, many other people, unfortunately, that have co-morbidities that live outside of care facilities, that it will take more time to immunize them.”

Slaoui also countered recent criticism from President-elect Joe Biden that the Trump administration doesn’t appear to have a detailed distribution plan for the vaccine.

He said Biden’s transition team has not yet been briefed on all plans.

“We haven’t had any meetings yet,” he said on CBS News. “I know we have a meeting this coming week, and we really look forward to it because actually things have been really very appropriately planned.”

In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Azar called Biden’s criticism “nonsense.”