Top U.S. Health Officials Tiptoe Around Trump's Vaccine Timeline
By: James Gorman (The New York Times)
The administrative mind is a marvelous archetypical model of contradictions. The foremost objective of the administrative mind is to shift blame. To the administrative mind 'believe the science' also means blame the science.
Case in point, these administrations are not going to approve a vaccine until science demonstrates safety and efficacy. But science cannot guarantee absolute safety or absolute efficacy; science can always be blamed. These administrators are not going to approve a vaccine that has any risk of harming the public. But delaying vaccine approval will harm the public. Not to worry, these administrators can place blame on the public for not following guidelines and requirements even though the guidelines and requirements cannot be absolutely effective. Testimony by an administrative mind is an exercise in shifting blame.
The reality is that any vaccine will not be 100 pct safe and effective. The potential harm that may result from a vaccine must be compared to the potential harm of remaining unvaccinated. We have hard evidence of how the population is being harmed by COVID; that is a known quantity. The guidelines and requirements won't be 100 pct effective; if they were 100 pct effective then we wouldn't need a vaccine at all. Blaming that on the public not following guidelines and requirements won't change the available evidence. The administrative mind uses absolute measures to shift blame.
Finally, these administrators are again using an absolute measure of vaccinating everyone. The blame is shifted toward production and distribution of the vaccine to end the pandemic. Yes, everyone should be vaccinated. But the immediate objective is to achieve herd immunity. Herd immunity will not require that everyone be vaccinated. The reality is that we will achieve herd immunity well before everyone can be vaccinated. Unfortunately for more sparsely populated parts of the United States, the priority will be achieving herd immunity in more densely populated areas first. We already know that is going to be a contentious issue driving all sorts of political nonsense. And the administrative minds are establishing measures and conditions that will shift blame elsewhere.
We already know that any vaccine will not be 100 pct safe and effective. We already know that the goal is to achieve herd immunity as quickly as possible. And we already know that the press and politicians are going to turn those into contentious, divisive issues. While these administrative minds speak in contradictions to shift blame, we already know they are going to be blamed anyway.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
As the nation's coronavirus death toll neared 200,000, top administration health officials on Sunday delicately sidestepped President Trump's ambitious declaration last week that a coronavirus vaccine would be available for every American by April.
Instead, Adm. Brett P. Giroir, who heads up national testing efforts, and Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, offered a slightly more conservative timetable for vaccine availability.
Both seemed to defend the forecasts made by experts including Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who was publicly rebuked by the president for estimating that an effective vaccine might not be widely available to the general public until the middle of next year.
On CNN's "State of the Union," Admiral Giroir told the host, Jake Tapper, that "in front of the Senate, Dr. Redfield and I both said that a vaccine that would be widely available in hundreds of millions of doses would not likely happen until mid-2021. That is a fact."
However, he said, the president was correct in saying that "We could have as many as a hundred million doses by the end of this year. That is correct."
"I think everybody is right," Admiral Giroir said.
Mr. Trump has often promised that the United States would produce a vaccine before Election Day on Nov. 3. But his optimism and projections for widespread availability have been roundly disputed. At the White House on Friday at a news conference, Mr. Trump said that once a vaccine is authorized, "distribution will begin within 24 hours after notice."
He added: "We will have manufactured at least 100 million vaccine doses before the end of the year. And likely much more than that. Hundreds of millions of doses will be available every month, and we expect to have enough vaccines for every American by April."
That translates to delivering vaccines to an estimated 330 million Americans by spring.
Those pronouncements have fueled public wariness over a rushed vaccine, evident in recent polls showing an eroding confidence in a coronavirus vaccine. In a new ABC News/Ipsos poll, fewer than one in 10 Americans had a great deal of confidence in the president's ability to confirm vaccine effectiveness; 18 percent reported only a "good amount" of confidence.
And in an apparent response to calls for transparency that could address those concerns, several vaccine makers publicly released traditionally secret protocols in the last week. Those efforts also are aimed at quelling scientists' fears that the accelerated timetables under discussion could lead to a vaccine that is either unsafe, doesn't work or isn't fully vetted.
The question of whether politics is overriding science in the race for a vaccine and research on treatments has dogged the Trump administration for months. And Mr. Azar has been a focal point for such criticism, drawing attention again this weekend after issuing a stunning declaration of authority that barred the nation's health agencies from signing any new rules regarding the nation's foods, medicines, medical devices and other products, including vaccines.
Public health experts and lawmakers have expressed alarm at other H.H.S. policies put in place by Mr. Azar and his deputies: censoring and altering C.D.C. researchers' reports on the virus; a recent contretemps over testing of asymptomatic people; and overruling the Food and Drug Administration by promoting largely unproven treatments or lab tests.
Mr. Azar did not address the uproar over his efforts to rein in decisions made by the C.D.C. and the F.D.A. during the pandemic, nor did he talk about his new order restricting agencies' authority.
But both Admiral Giroir and Mr. Azar also reiterated the need for the public to wear masks, a practice the president often mocks. Mr. Trump's recent campaign rallies are full of supporters who do not wear face coverings, in violation of mask requirements in some localities.
On the issue of testing, Admiral Giroir seemed to come down on the side of the C.D.C., with an unambiguous endorsement of testing people without symptoms, a matter of conflict between the White House and the agency.
Documents obtained by The New York Times showed that top administration officials had inserted recommendations onto the agency's website that people without symptoms did not need testing even when they had been exposed to someone infected with the virus.
The C.D.C. reversed itself on Friday, recommending testing even when exposed people are asymptomatic.
Admiral Giroir said on CNN that the government had supported surge testing for 19 different cities, "primarily focusing on the younger population that could be asymptomatic because we know they're very important in the spread of this infection."
Masks have also been a point of contention, yet again. Mr. Trump clashed last week with Dr. Redfield on the value of masks, saying that Dr. Redfield had been mistaken when he compared the value of masks to a vaccine.
Mr. Azar told Chuck Todd on NBC's "Meet the Press" that masks were clearly important. "I think the point the president was making is there's not an equivalence between masks and vaccines," he said.
He was asked on Sunday whether the White House had forced him to hire Michael Caputo, the assistant secretary for public affairs at H.H.S. who did not have public health experience. Mr. Caputo went on medical leave last week after posting a Facebook video in which he accused scientists at the C.D.C. of "sedition" and warned of a leftist uprising after the presidential election. Mr. Caputo later apologized for the tirade, in which he had said, "There are scientists who work for this government who do not want America to get well, not until after Joe Biden is president."
Mr. Azar said he wouldn't discuss personnel matters and added: "Our thoughts and prayers are with Michael. He added value and helped with our Covid response."
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The only way out of the COVID pandemic is to achieve herd immunity. We either achieve that naturally through spread of the virus or we achieve that using vaccines. We are damned if we do and damned if we don't
Shifting blame won't change what is necessary to end the pandemic.
It would be foolish to take a vaccine that has not been properly tested and gone through all trials. There will not be a vaccine ready by election day, much as trumpturd wishes it was so. It wouldn't gain him any votes anyway as it is his fault that Co-Vid spread so much in the US to over 200,000 deaths and counting.
Herd immunity is not relevant to Co-Vid. MILLIONS WOULD DIE.
A safe, tested vaccine WOULDN'T be ready until the middle of 2021. Redfield is correct on that point.
Agreed. But how safe does the vaccine need to be?
Achieving herd immunity is the only way to end the pandemic. Without herd immunity the number of deaths will continue to increase. A million have already died due to the global COVID pandemic.
Only an anti-vaxxer would ignore the role of vaccines in achieving herd immunity.
Redfield has stated that the earliest that vaccines would be available to everyone in the United States would be the second or third quarter of 2021. But the immediate priority is to achieve herd immunity. We really will achieve herd immunity, through vaccination, well before everyone can be vaccinated.
WITH HERD IMMUNITY RELATED TO CO-VID MILLIONS WILL DIE. THAT MAY BE ACCEPTABLE TO YOU AND TRUMPTURD BUT NO ONE ELSE.
You're repeating yourself again.
Only with an extraordinarily dangerous vaccine.
We attempt to achieve herd immunity against influenza every flu season. If influenza vaccines weren't available then more people would die.
Apparently you didn't understand how I said it the first time.
HERD IMMUNITY LEADS TO MILLIONS OF DEATH/PUTS MILLIONS AT RISK
False.
TRUE