Matt Perez Forbes Staff
TOPLINE
While announcing the appointment of Dr. Moncef Sloaui and Army General Gustave Perna to lead a federal effort to accelerate development of a coronavirus vaccine, President Trump on Friday continued to beat the drum of reopening, saying that «vaccine or no vaccine, we’re back.»
KEY FACTS
Trump officially unveiled Operation Warp Speed, which will evaluate roughly 100 vaccine candidates from different companies and agencies, identify 14 of the most promising and both expedite clinical trials and accelerate their manufacturing processes to be able to immediately distribute once approved.
«It’s risky, it’s expensive, but we’ll be saving massive amounts of time,» Trump said.
Vaccines can take up to 10 years to develop but Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, has said the government is pressing for a 12-to-18 month timeline.
A former chairman of vaccines at GlaxoSmithKline, which helped develop 14 vaccines within a decade, Slaoui is reportedly giving up a seat on the board of the biotech company Moderna, which is developing a coronavirus vaccine.
Trump has expressed hope to have a vaccine «by the end of the year if we can, maybe before,» but experts have cautioned that the timeline is aggressive, with Slaoui calling the task «extremely challenging.»
Despite what people like Fauci previously said about the need for a vaccine because of the highly infectious nature of the coronavirus, Trump again dismissed the importance of it, saying «I don’t want people to think this is all dependent on a vaccine.»
When asked about his claim that the virus will go away without a vaccine, Trump said the number of deaths—86,228 reported in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University—is «a very, very small percentage, I say it all the time, it’s a tiny percentage, the vast majority, many people don’t even know they have it.»
KEY BACKGROUND
Multiple vaccines are currently being developed, with some already in Phase 1 trials. Moderna received an accelerated approval from the Food and Drug Administration to move its vaccine candidate into Phase 2. If a vaccine candidate succeeds, the government will still need to produce supplies like glass vials and develop a distribution strategy. Trump during the briefing said it «makes sense» if states like New York receive the first batch of vaccines.
Dr. Rick Bright, the vaccine expert who was ousted from his position leading the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, echoed cautions about the aggressive timeline of a vaccine while testifying during his House hearing. «There is a lot of optimism. There is a lot of hope…but that doesn’t make a vaccine. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done to make a vaccine.»
TANGENT
Mike Ryan, the executive director of health emergencies at the World Health Organization, earlier in the week expressed the difficulties of not just finding a cure but also distributing it. «We’ve got to make enough of it that everyone can get a dose of it, and we’ve got to be able to deliver that and people have got to want to take that vaccine. Every single one of those steps is fraught with challenges.» Regarding the latter challenge, Ryan said, «Forgive me if I’m cynical, but we have some perfectly effective vaccines on this planet that we have not used effectively for diseases we could eliminate and eradicate, and we haven’t done it.»
BIG NUMBER
64%. That’s how many U.S. adults said they would get a coronavirus vaccination when available, according to a Morning Consult poll. Only 53% of adults ages 35-44 said they would take the immunization, with 18% saying they would not.
