National Post (National Edition)
`Hope' for a vaccine by year end: WHO chief
Top U.S. admiral, more infected at White House
GENEVA • A vaccine against COVID-19 may be ready by year end, the head of the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for solidarity and political commitment by all leaders to ensure equal distribution of vaccines when they become available.
“We will need vaccines and there is hope that by the end of this year we may have a vaccine. There is hope,” Tedros said in final remarks to the WHO's executive board, without elaborating.
Nine experimental vaccines are in the pipeline of the WHO's COVAX global vaccine facility that aims to distribute two billion doses by the end of 2021.
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has strongly criticized the WHO's role in the crisis, accusing it of being too close to China and not doing enough to question Beijing's actions late last year when the virus first emerged in Wuhan.
Tedros has dismissed the suggestions and said his agency has kept the world informed.
Three independent panels reviewing WHO performance including its 2005 International Health Regulations — which set guidelines on trade and travel restrictions imposed during health emergencies — gave updates on their work during the two-day WHO board meeting.
The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness
and Response, led by former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, met for the first time last month.
“We hope to get the real lessons that we can implement and prevent the same thing from happening,” Tedros said. “But I would like to assure you that WHO is ready to learn from this and change this organization.”
In Washington where he is recovering from the virus, Trump said Americans were learning to live with the pandemic, posting comments online that drew a rebuke from Facebook and Twitter for likening the COVID-19 death toll to that of the annual flu.
“Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!” Trump wrote on Twitter and Facebook.
Twitter responded by putting a warning label on the post, saying it included potentially misleading information. Facebook Inc removed the post for breaking its rules on COVID-19 misinformation, according to CNN.
The United States has the world's highest death toll from the pandemic, with more than 209,000 deaths. By comparison, influenza typically kills between some 22,000 and 64,000 people a year in the United States, U.S. government statistics show.
Trump's doctor said on Tuesday he was doing “extremely well” and reporting no COVID-19 symptoms.
Sean Conley, a Navy commander, said a team of physicians met with the president on Tuesday morning.
“He had a restful first night at home, and today he reports no symptoms. Vital signs and physical exam remain stable, with an ambulatory oxygen saturation level of 95-97%,” Conley said in a statement released by the White House. “Overall he continues to do extremely well.”
Many Trump aides and confidants have been diagnosed with the disease since his announcement last week that he had tested positive. Media outlets reported two more White House staffers had tested positive for the disease.
One was a Trump valet, an active member of the U.S. military who travelled with the president last week, a Bloomberg News reporter said on Twitter, citing unnamed sources. Bloomberg, CNN and NBC also reported that a military aide to Trump had COVID-19.
White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany, herself diagnosed with the virus, said the rise in COVID-19 cases at the White House and among some Republican senators was not disrupting the functioning of the U.S. government.
“We are regularly meeting,” although some staff must attend remotely, she told Fox Business Network.
The top U.S. military leaders, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are isolating after the Coast Guard's No. 2 tested positive for the coronavirus, Pentagon officials said.