Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Trump now says a vaccine to be ready for all by April
WASHINGTON — Pres- ident Donald Trump said Friday that every American would have access to a coro- navirus vaccine by April, despite saying two days earlier that it would be ready in weeks.
The president’s specific timeline Friday was not far off from the one Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield had laid out. But when Redfield said earlier in the week that the general public was unlikely to get access to the vaccine until the second and third quarters of 2021, Trump said he’d misspoken.
“I think he made a mistake with that statement,” Trump said Wednesday. “When he said it, I believe he was confused. I’m just telling you we’re ready to go.”
And on Thursday morning, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows also questioned Redfield’s timeline.
“The CDC is not developing the vaccines,” Meadows said. “While Dr. Redfield may have a timeline in mind, to my knowledge he hasn’t had
v intimate discussions with those processes.”
Then Trump said Friday: “Hundreds of millions of doses will be available every month, and we expect to have enough vaccines for every American by April.”
The U.S. government has invested billions of dollars to make vaccines, prepurchasing hundreds of millions of doses. Pfizer, for example, whose executives project they may have data showing whether their vaccine works by the end of October, has said 100 million doses will be ready by the end of the year. But whether those can be given to people will depend on data that persuades regulators the vaccine is effective and safe.
The U.S. government has prepurchased 300 million doses of a vaccine made by AstraZeneca, to be delivered as early as October, for example. But the clinical trial of that vaccine is on hold in the United States as a committee investigates a possible adverse event in a British trial, potentially delaying the collection of data that the Food and Drug Administration would require before greenlighting the vaccine.
AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot has said the trial is still on track to report results by the end of the year. The trial was paused globally, but has resumed in the United Kingdom, Brazil and India.
No other companies that are part of the U.S. effort are far enough along to have a vaccine ready in the near term.
In addition, drugmakers have promised not to submit a product for review by the FDA until they have conclusive safety and efficacy data, not just a first answer on effectiveness, which will take more time. The results they produce will have to be reviewed by the FDA, a process that could take additional weeks or months, especially if the agency convenes a public meeting to review the data.
All of this, of course, assumes that the vaccines under development work and are safe. That’s far from guaranteed; most pharmaceutical products fail in development, and even those that make it to late-stage testing can reveal surprise safety worries or disappointing efficacy results. While the ongoing trials are the final stage of testing, they’re also the first time the vaccine has been tested against the virus in the real world.
Trump said Friday that the vaccines “are going through the gold standard of clinical trials with very heavy emphasis placed on safety.”
He also claimed that as soon as a vaccine is approved, the administration will begin distribution within 24 hours.
PELOSI VS. ARCHBISHOP
Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed back Friday against the Catholic archbishop of San Francisco’s criticism of covid-related restrictions, saying he should “follow science” rather than advocate for fuller in-person gatherings for Mass and worship.
Asked about Archbishop Salvatore Joseph Cordileone’s recent op-ed protesting limits on larger public gatherings, Pelosi, a practicing Catholic, said he should not be putting people’s lives at risk.
“With all due respect to my archbishop, I think we should follow science on this,” Pelosi said.
The bishop said worshippers’ rights are being “unjustly repressed” by the government. Nationwide, several churches are suing to halt restrictions.
“We recognize that the government has a right to impose reasonable public health rules,” Cordileone wrote in The Washington Post. “But when government asserts authority over the church’s very right to worship, it crosses a line.”
Pelosi said she attended in-person service recently in her San Francisco hometown, and received Communion — picking up the wafer from the priest, as is allowed, rather than having it placed directly on the tongue. She regularly joins online services.
“I miss going to church regularly,” she said.
She questioned whether the archbishop’s message was misunderstood. “I’m sure he must have meant if it is scientifically safe, rather than jeopardizing people’s health if they want to go to church,” she said.
Pelosi noted that faith and science are sometimes seen at odds.
“Around here, people say to me, ‘You’re a person of faith, why do you believe in science?’” she said. “I say, ‘I believe science is an answer to our prayers. It is a creation of God, and one that is an answer to our prayers.’”
CANADA STAYS CLOSED
Canada is extending the agreement to keep the U.S. border closed to nonessential travel through Oct. 21.
Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said Friday that his nation will continue to base the decision on the best public health advice available to keep Canadians safe.
The restrictions were announced March 18 and have been extended each month since.
Many Canadians fear a reopening. The U.S. has more confirmed cases and deaths from covid-19 than any other country in the world.
Canada is seeing an uptick in cases in recent weeks. Its largest province, Ontario, reported 401 new cases Friday.
Essential cross-border workers like health care professionals, airline crews and truck drivers are still permitted to cross. Truck drivers are critical, as they move food and medical goods in both directions, and much of Canada’s food supply comes from or via the U.S.
Americans who are returning to the U.S. and Canadians who are returning to Canada are also exempted from the border closure.
NEW LOCKDOWNS
Elsewhere, the British government targeted more areas for lockdown Friday in an attempt to suppress a sharp spike in new coronavirus infections.
With more restrictions on gatherings and other activities announced for large parts of England, there is growing speculation that the U.K. may be sliding toward a broad lockdown by stealth in the coming weeks, partly because the testing regime is struggling to cope with higher demand.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was “inevitable” that a second coronavirus wave would reach the nation.
“As I’ve said for several weeks now, that we could expect [and] are now seeing a second wave coming in,” Johnson said during a visit to a vaccine manufacturing center under construction near Oxford. “We are seeing it in France, in Spain, across Europe.”
Meanwhile, Israel went back into a full lockdown Friday to try to contain a coronavirus outbreak that has steadily worsened for months as its government has been plagued by indecision and infighting.
The three-week lockdown requires the closure of many businesses and sets strict limits on movement and public gatherings. The closures coincide with the Jewish High Holidays, when people typically visit their families and gather for large prayer services.
In an address late Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that even stricter measures may be needed to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed.
“It could be that we will have no choice but to make the directives more stringent,” Netanyahu said. “I will not impose a lockdown on the citizens of Israel for no reason, and I will not hesitate to add further restrictions if it is necessary.”
In Hungary, the prime minister said Friday that the government has drawn up a “war plan” to defend against the new wave of coronavirus and that the country’s health care system is prepared to handle the rising number of cases.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on state radio that while everyone was asked to stay home during the first wave of the pandemic, the preparedness of hospitals and sufficient ventilators now make it possible for the country to keep functioning while respecting strict rules about wearing masks and social distancing.
“During the first wave, all we could say was that everyone should stay at home and meanwhile we’ll get the health system ready,” Orban said. “Now the task is not for everyone to stay at home but, on the contrary, for everyone to keep on living their lives.”
“The country has to function, but it has to function while at the same time it protects itself against the virus in a disciplined manner and following the rules.”
Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have all announced a record number of new cases this week.
Information for this article was contributed by Colby Itkowitz and Carolyn Y. Johnson of The Washington Post; by Drew Armstrong of Bloomberg News; and by Pan Pylas, Joseph Krauss, Rob Gillies, Pablo Gorondi, Karel Janicek and Lisa Mascaro of The Associated Press.