Vaccine hunt kicking into higher gear
significantly g y more poll p workers to process votes, putting staff at major risk of contracting the potentially deadly virus.
“The risk was not warranted,” she said.
Language slipped into the state budget signed by Gov. Cuomo in April allowed the Board of Elections to cancel the presidential primary if all but one of the candidates had suspended their campaigns or dropped out.
The primary — now scheduledforJune23—thus would be won by Joe Biden, the last candidate standing, who would get all the Democrats’ presidential delegates.
But candidate Andrew Yang believes that even though he suspended his presidential campaign, he would still like to appear on the June ballot in the hope of winning some delegates to this year’s Democratic convention. That would give him a voice in the party’s platform and other issues.
A federal judge reversed the Board of Election’s decision canceling the presidential contest, and the state decided to appeal.
Vale argued that Yang and ex-candidate Bernie Sanders — who has backed Yang’s suit — had 23 days to “un-suspend” their campaigns after the passage of the budget.
Vale said the former candidates will have alternate ways of expressing their policy issues to the ultimate nominee and gathering delegates for the Democratic party’s August convention, which she said Sen. Sanders has begun doing informally.
Yang lawyer Jeffrey Kurzon said there was “no way” the retroactive law “should have been applied midstream to people who had already done everything right.”
“This is how the game is played,” he said. “If you’re not going to be president, then you want the campaign of the person who is going to be president to reflect your beliefs.”
Having a COVID-19 vaccine by January is “a stretch goal,” but the head of the National Institutes of Health is gearing up for a master experiment to rapidly tell if any really work.
At least four or five possible vaccines “look pretty promising,” and one or two will be ready to begin large-scale testing by July with others to follow soon, NIH Director Francis Collins said in an interview late Thursday.
“Your big challenge now is to go big, and everybody is about ready for that. And we want to be sure that happens in a coordinated way,” Collins said.
The NIH, in partnership with some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, is creating a master plan that vaccine-makers can follow. Collins called it a “very bold plan — a stretch goal if there ever was one,” but one he’s optimistic the science side can help speed.
But he added: “If we can get this vaccine out there even a day sooner than otherwise we might have, that’s going to matter to somebody.”
Despite all the emphasis on speed, Collins (photo) stressed that “no corners are going to be cut” on safety.
Worldwide, about a dozen vaccine candidates are in the first stages of testing or poised to begin. Among those getting the most attention are one created by the NIH and Moderna Inc., and a different type created by Britain’s Oxford University.
Separately, the Trump administration is working on how to produce possible vaccines now, a huge gamble before anyone knows which ones will pan out.
President Donald Trump on Friday declared the vaccine program he calls “Operation Warp Speed” will be “unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project.” The goal is to have 300 million doses available to distribute to Americans by January.