With all the negativity in the fight against Covid-19, a bit of positivity is in order. Yeah we all know how allegedly poorly the Trump administration has performed during this pandemic and I don't recall seeing much positive coming from this particular site, so here we go. On May 1, 2020, President Donald J. Trump announced that the investigational antiviral drug remdesivir has been authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency use to treat suspected or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in adults and children hospitalized with severe disease. The President made the announcement in the Oval Office alongside U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn, Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah L. Birx, and Gilead Sciences CEO Daniel O’Day. During his remarks, the President discussed the steps taken by his Administration to end the coronavirus epidemic, as well as its work with private industry and other partners on Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America, the nation’s initiative to reduce new HIV infections in the United States by 75 percent in five years and by 90 percent by 2030. The President also discussed the progress made in treating hepatitis C, noting that the medication is “not just keeping [hepatitis C] down…it’s an actual cure.” Secretary Azar underscored the President’s leadership on the EHE initiative, saying, “...we really have this in our grasp...the tools were there, but it took President Trump’s call to action to make this a reality.” Bill Gates and the government have been pro-active in finding a vaccine:- Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates said therapeutic drugs to treat the coronavirus could reduce the death rate substantially this year but a vaccine will be crucial to bringing back a sense of normalcy to society. “You can see the therapeutic benefit faster than the protective benefit,” Gates said in an interview that aired Tuesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “So I think there’s a good chance we’ll have substantial death-rate reduction by the end of the year with the combination of those new tools.” The Microsoft co-founder and co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said remdesivir was one of the leading treatments in the therapeutic research. Remdesivir is an antiviral drug from Gilead Sciences that has shown to have reduced the risk of death for severely sick Covid-19 patients by 62% compared with standard care alone. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced plans in February to donate $100 million to vaccine research and treatment efforts for the coronavirus as part of the World Health Organization’s request for $675 million in contributions to fight the spread of the virus. In June, the foundation pledged an additional $1.6 billion to the Gavi vaccine alliance, an organization focused on efforts to immunize children amid the coronavirus pandemic. U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and German biotech company BioNTech announced Monday that they just began their late-stage human trial. Earlier this month, they said one of their four vaccine candidates produced neutralizing antibodies, which researchers believe is necessary to build immunity to the virus, in all participants who received two of the 10 or 30 microgram doses. Last week, Pfizer and BioNTech received $1.95 billion in funding from the U.S. government to produce and deliver 100 million doses of their vaccine if it proves safe and effective. Moderna, another leading pharmaceutical company in the race to develop a vaccine, also announced Monday it received an additional $472 million in funding from the government. The company has previously received $483 million from the federal agency in April. (full article here) (Government's playbook here)
All great news. Even better if we'd have been able to test more people so that we could quarantine more effectively. Better yet, if we had a government administration that would have acknowledged that this thing was real 3-4 months earlier. Or if they'd have listened to scientists that have made a career out of it, instead of depending on a vaccine, which may or may not be effective by time it's deployed full scale. I could go on and on. On top of that, if we were simply going to wait for a vaccine and sacrifice 150k, should we have ruined the economy too? But since we're stuck depending on a vaccine, this is good news.
I will agree there is hope and right now the Moderna and Oxford vaccines appear promising. There are better treatments and bettter techniques that hospitals are using to keep patients alive. I will also say that the Trump Administration hasn't done everything bad and certainly Operation Warp Speed was the right move. All of that said we cannot overlook the confusion, distraction, self-serving and in my opinion most damning of all failure to take any responsibility out of this administration and that goes right to the top. I'm not one of those who believe that if we had a different President things would be fine. This is a serious disease and even if we had a President that combined the best of Lincoln and FDR (two Presidents who faced existential crisis of this country) we would still likely have many cases and many deaths. Looking though at what other countries did though it should be abundantly clear that this could've been handled better. This country wasn't prepared and still doesn't have the will collectively to fight this disease. That has been greatly exacerbated by the leadership on top. Trump is showing that he is a chaos president but in a crisis like this chaos is the worst thing you can have.
Responding to President Trump’s call to develop 300 million doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine by January under Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and AstraZeneca are collaborating to make available at least 300 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine called AZD1222, with the first doses delivered as early as October 2020. The agreement between AstraZeneca and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the HHS office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, will accelerate the development and manufacturing of the company’s investigational vaccine to begin Phase 3 clinical studies this summer with approximately 30,000 volunteers in the United States. Under this public-private partnership, BARDA can provide up to $1.2 billion to support, in parallel, advanced clinical studies, vaccine manufacturing technology transfer, process development, scaled-up manufacturing, and other development activities. Emergency use authorization or licensure of this vaccine from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would be required to make the vaccine available. Early milestones enable BARDA and AstraZeneca to determine how the program progresses forward. “This contract with AstraZeneca is a major milestone in Operation Warp Speed’s work toward a safe, effective, widely available vaccine by 2021,” said HHS Secretary Alex Azar. “Getting a vaccine to the American public as soon as possible is one part of President Trump’s multi-faceted strategy for safely reopening our country and bringing life back to normal, which is essential to Americans’ physical and mental well-being in so many ways. The Trump Administration is making multiple major investments in developing and manufacturing promising vaccines long before they’re approved so that a successful vaccine will reach the American people without a day wasted.” (full article here)
All of that is good and we should all hope that vaccine development happens quickly and soon. What is missing though is that is the easy stuff. A contagious disease is mostly a challenge of public policy than it is a technical challenge. This is why comparing things like this to the Manhattan project or going to the Moon is flawed. Those were great achievements but it didn't require all Americans to act to make those possible. To fight something like this is more like what British civilians had to do during the Battle of Britain. They had to follow air raid black out procedures, they had to ration food and metal. It was a major change to their lives. For us it's things like wearing masks, keeping social distance, and washing your hands. Trump has said he's a war time president. In a war the will of the population to fight is the most important factor and again we don't have the collective will to fight this. This is where leadership comes in. Churchill was able to rally all of the British people to fight and sacrifice. He didn't go on the radio and blame failures on Labour mayors.. FDR spoke to the nation as whole and focused the nation on what was needed first in Depression and then to fight WWII. Neither of those leaders told people things like this was a hoax by rival political parties or it would just go away. They leveled with the people about the seriousness of the situation rather than just dismiss the seriousness or wallow in false hope. Most importantly they took responsibility. In Churchill's "Finest Hour" speech much of it is him pointing out how much of a disaster things had been leading up to the retreat from Dunkirk. Many of the New Deal programs were failures and in the Civil War the Union army suffered a string of humiliating defeats at the beginning of the war. Failures happen to even the best leaders leaders though that never take responsibility end up losing the trust of those who follow them. FDR didn't come out and say "All we have to fear is fear itself but also my economic advisors who gave me bad advice to make me look bad." This is what is so troubling about the current debate. We are so polarized that it seems among Trump's supporters it is more important to defend Trump than it is to actually fight this disease. So many are making excuses for Trump such as Fauci wasn't clear on mask wearing, it's up to governors to make most of the decisions, the media is ignoring the good stuff Trump has done, etc... None of that is helping the crisis and if anything it is making it worse. It's coddling the President and wallowing in partisan victimhood. Many of you might think that you have to do this because you feel that this is a zero sum game and any admission of failings by President means that your political enemies win. That's bad when we're not facing an national crisis but it's devastating now.
Like I stated once before Trump has not been the perfect example in this but neither should we listen to non medical professionals. The Trump administration has done quite a bit in this pandemic - contrary to what you would believe looking through this site. And that isn't helping anything either.
The President, regardless of who it is, is ultimately responsible for delivering a unified message based on the advice he gets from people that are responsible for creating the message. Doesn't matter if it's a pandemic, a war, an economic issue, etc. Knowing all the time the advice may change based on new or better understood information. He can't contradict or ignore the experts. Trump is terrible at that.
No ****...he just made a thread about two weeks ago saying he was done with Trump, he'd gone too far with the Roger Stone commuted sentence but it looks like he's flip flopped again...
Such a fine example he sets, and his Maskless Moron supporters follow his lead in a Coronavirus hot spot.
Good to see the medical and scientific advances despite the obstruction and feet-dragging of the dip$hit administration.
