Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
2nd covid vaccine rolling out
Moderna’s shots OK’d; Pence, top lawmakers vaccinated
WASHINGTON — The U.S. added a second covid-19 vaccine to its arsenal Friday evening, boosting efforts to beat back an outbreak so dire that the nation is regularly recording more than 3,000 deaths a day.
Much-needed doses are set to arrive Monday after the Food and Drug Administration authorized an emergency rollout of the vaccine developed by Moderna Inc. and the National Institutes of Health.
Meanwhile on Friday, Vice President Mike Pence and the leaders of the House and Senate received doses of the first vaccine — from Pfizer Inc. and Germany’s BioNTech — as they tried to reassure the American public that the shot is safe.
Conspicuously absent was President Donald Trump,
who has remained largely out of sight five days into the largest vaccination campaign in the nation’s history.
President-elect Joe Biden plans to get a shot Monday.
The FDA’s move marks the world’s first authorization for Moderna’s shots. The vaccine is similar to the first one now being dispensed to millions of health care workers and nursing-home residents as well as U.S. leaders.
The two shots work “better than we almost dared to hope,” National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins said. “Science is working here, science has done something amazing.”
Early results of large, still- unfinished studies show both vaccines appear safe and strongly protective, although Moderna’s is easier to handle since it doesn’t need to be stored at ultralow temperatures.
A second vaccine represents a ray of hope in the despair as the virus continues spreading unabated even before holiday gatherings that are certain to further fuel the outbreak.
Experts hope the two together will “break the back of the pandemic” when combined with masks and other precautions, said Dr. Arnold Monto of the University of Michigan, who chaired an advisory committee that debated the data on the shots ahead of the FDA’s decisions.
Emergency authorization from the FDA means a vaccine is still experimental, with studies required to continue to track long-term safety and answer lingering questions.
Data provided to the FDA’s advisers shows the Moderna vaccine was more than 94% effective at preventing infection in people 18 and older and that it strongly protected older adults, who are most vulnerable.
A study of more than 30,000 volunteers uncovered no major safety problems so far. Side effects typically seen with other vaccinations were common, such as sore arms, fever, fatigue and muscle aches, which are signs the immune system is revving up.
‘DIDN’T FEEL A THING’
Republican Pence, in a live- television event, celebrated the Pfizer-BioNTech milestone as “a medical miracle” that could help put an end to a raging pandemic that has killed 313,000 people nationwide.
“I didn’t feel a thing. Well done,” Pence told technicians from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Later, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., tweeted photos of themselves receiving the vaccine from the Capitol physician, who urged all members of Congress to join them.
“Today, with confidence in science & at the direction of the Office of the Attending Physician, I received the COVID-19 vaccine,” Pelosi wrote.
“Just received the safe, effective covid vaccine following continuity-of-government protocols. Vaccines are how we beat this virus,” said McConnell, a polio survivor.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, said the symbolic day should remind the rest of the country to “step to the plate.” He also tried to reassure people who are skeptical, noting that the decision to call the new vaccine safe and effective “was not in the hands of the company, nor was it in the hands of the administration,” but in the hands of independent scientists and vaccinologists.
Biden and his wife, Jill, will get their first dose of the vaccine Monday, said his press secretary, Jen Psaki. She told reporters that the Bidens will receive the shot in public, at a Delaware medical facility.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, are to get their doses after Christmas.
The public displays took place as top U.S. health officials are trying to persuade Americans who may be skeptical of the vaccinations to get them to pave the way for the end of the pandemic.
A recent survey from The Associated Press- NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that only about half of Americans want to get the vaccine as soon as possible. Another quarter of the public isn’t sure, while the remaining quarter say they aren’t interested.
Some simply oppose vaccines in general. Others are concerned that the injections have been rushed and want to see how the rollout goes.
AN ABSENCE OF TRUMP
Trump, who was hospitalized with covid-19 in October, has been largely absent from the effort to sell the American public on what aides hope will be a key part of his legacy. He has held no public events to trumpet the rollout. He hasn’t said when he will be inoculated. And he has tweeted about the shot just a handful of times despite sending a flurry of tweets on other topics.
Trump is relatively silent but continues to rage about his defeat in the Nov. 3 election and embraces increasingly extreme efforts to overturn the election. He’s pushed aside the plans of aides who wanted him to be the public face of the vaccination campaign, eschewing visits to labs and production facilities to thank workers, or hosting efforts to build public confidence in the shot, according to people familiar with the conversations who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly.
Instead, Pence has been the one in the spotlight highlighting the safety and efficacy of the vaccines, touring a production facility this week before headlining Friday’s event.
Pence didn’t flinch during the shot, nor did his wife. “Today, Karen and I wanted to step forward and take this vaccine to assure the American people that while we cut red tape, we cut no corners,” Pence said. “Hope is on the way.”
Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who is Black, also received a shot during the televised White House event and stressed the importance of members of minority groups seeing people like him being vaccinated to build trust.
Trump’s lack of visibility has been surprising, especially for a president rarely shy to take credit, said Lawrence Gostin, a professor at Georgetown Law who focuses on public health.
“The president’s relatively low profile on the covid response since the election is curious and counter to Mr. Trump’s own interests,” he said. Gostin, who has criticized Trump’s handling of the pandemic in the past, said he “deserves a great deal of credit” for Operation Warp Speed and placing a bet on two vaccines that use groundbreaking mRNA [messenger RNA] technology.
“Having exhibited leadership in the vaccines’ development, he should take great pride in publicly demonstrating his trust in covid vaccines,” Gostin said.
Trump did appear at a White House summit ahead of the FDA’s approval of the Pfizer vaccine last week. But many Trump aides are puzzled by his low profile now that the vaccine is actually being injected. They see it as a missed opportunity for the president, who leaves office Jan. 20, to claim credit for helping oversee the speedy development and deployment of the vaccine that is expected to help finally contain the virus.
Trump himself has fretted about credit going to his successor, who will preside over the bulk of the nationwide injection campaign next year.
“Don’t let Joe Biden take credit for the vaccines,” Trump has told reporters. “Don’t let him take credit for the vaccines because the vaccines were me, and I pushed people harder than they’ve ever been pushed before.”
In fact, FDA scientists were the ones who came up with the idea for Operation Warp Speed, the White House-backed effort through which millions of doses of coronavirus vaccines and treatments are being manufactured even as they are still being evaluated. And much of the groundwork for the shots was laid over the past decade, including through research on mRNA.
Trump’s low- key approach could have an impact on public health. Fauci told NBC News this week that 75% to 85% of the nation needs to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity, making the public education campaign about the vaccine’s safety all the more pressing.
Trump has said he would be open to taking a vaccine. White House deputy press secretary Brian Morgenstern told reporters that because Trump already had covid-19, his doctors have been trying to determine when he should take it.
According to guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is not yet enough information to determine whether those who have had covid-19 should in fact get the vaccine.
But White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany offered an alternative explanation. She told reporters this week that Trump, who has previously spread misinformation about other vaccines, “wants to send a parallel message which is, you know, our long- term care facility residents and our front- line workers are paramount in importance.”
Gostin disagreed. “It will be enormously damaging to public trust in the vaccine if President Trump isn’t visibly enthusiastic, including getting his shot on national television,” he argued. “It simply isn’t good enough to have Vice President Pence as a proxy.”
SHOW OF FAITH
Throughout Friday at the Capitol, other members of leadership and rank- andfile lawmakers also received the vaccine. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., were vaccinated.
Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R- Ohio, a doctor, volunteered to get the shot and afterward encouraged his constituents to do the same when it becomes more widely available.
“After the incredibly challenging year we’ve had, I feel very blessed to receive this vaccine,” he said. “I hope that my decision to get it gives my constituents confidence in the safety and efficacy that have been demonstrated in the extensive trials.”
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, released a statement that he’d be receiving it at the recommendation of the Capitol Hill attending physician, and later tweeted a photo in which he was vaccinated.
“Grateful for the hard work from the medical community, gov. partners, and others who are working around the clock to deliver a safe & effective #COVID19 vaccine. It’s time for Congress to do its job and finish what our bipartisan group started by passing emergency COVID relief,” Romney tweeted.
There was some backlash to members of Congress getting the vaccine as they remain at odds over a relief package for Americans struggling economically because of the pandemic. Some lawmakers don’t want to be seen as jumping the line, but others enthusiastically made appointments.
Rep. Brian Mast, R- Fla., blasted those who received the vaccine before ordinary Americans, saying in a statement that, “Congress needs to stop treating itself as a special political class, and the mere suggestion that members of Congress are in any way more important than the very people who gave us the privilege of serving in Congress is appalling.”
But Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Fla., said he saw it as doing his part to slow the spread.
“This vaccine is a true medical miracle that signals the light at the end of the tunnel we have all been desperately praying for since March,” Crist said in a statement.
Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., acknowledged that he had received the vaccine before most Americans, but said he hoped doing so would encourage others to do the same.
“Millions of Americans are waiting for shots, many of whom are workers on the front lines of this pandemic,” Beyer tweeted. “I am not more important than they are, but national leaders must lead by example.”
Information for this article was contributed by Zeke Miller, Jill Colvin, Mary Clare Jalonick, Lauran Neergaard, Matthew Perrone, Amy Taxin and staff members of The Associated Press; by Paul Kane and John Wagner of The Washington Post; and by Annie Karni of The New York Times.