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Biden's advisers to meet with vaccine makers

By AI HEPING in New York | China Daily Global | Updated: 2020-11-17 00:02

US President-elect Joe Biden waves as he departs church in Wilmington, Delaware, US, November 15, 2020. [Photo/Agencies]

Scientists on President-elect Joe Biden's transition team will meet with vaccine makers to get around President Donald Trump's blocking the team from distribution plans for the biggest vaccination effort in US history.

"We're going to start those consultations this week," Biden's chief of staff, Ron Klain, said Sunday, citing Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies.

He said Biden's experts need a detailed understanding of distribution plans being put together by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Pentagon. In some ways, that's the more critical issue, he said.

"It's great to have a vaccine, but vaccines don't save lives: vaccinations save lives. And that means you've got to get that vaccine into people's arms all over this country. It's a giant logistical project," Klain said.

Trump's refusal to concede the election to Biden has prevented the transition process from formally beginning. The General Services Administration (GSA) has yet to "ascertain" the winner of the election, is leaving Biden and his advisers without intelligence briefings and the usual resources given to a president-elect for a smooth transition. It means those working to develop the vaccine-distribution plan can't share it with those who will take over in January.

"What we really want to see this week is the GSA issue that ascertainment," Klain said, which would enable Biden's team to meet with public health officials and receive intelligence briefings.

"Of course, it would be better if we could start working with them," Dr Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Sunday on CNN about working with Biden's transition team.

"I have been through multiple transitions now, having served six presidents for 36 years," he said. "And it's very clear that that transition process that we go through, that time period of measured in several weeks to months, is really important in a smooth handing over of the information."

"It's almost like passing a baton in a race – you don't want to stop and then give it to somebody," Fauci said of the transition. "You want to just essentially keep going."

Admiral Brett Giroir, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said Sunday on ABC's This Week that he wants to share information about the pandemic and that it shouldn't be a political process.

He said that while the GSA controls the process, "My team, all the docs that work for us, we want to be extremely transparent.

"This is not a political issue," Giroir said. "This is an issue of public health and saving American lives. And I think there's nothing more important than that."

The announcement that Biden's scientific advisers on COVID-19 will meet with vaccine manufacturers comes as the number of new coronavirus cases reported in the US was 165,555 on Sunday and deaths totaled 1,266, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. That means the US is adding about 1 million new cases a week.

Dr Michael Osterholm, a member of Biden's COVID-19 advisory group, said Sunday that the country was "in a very dangerous period", calling it the most dangerous public health crisis since the 1918 influenza pandemic, which killed an estimated 50 million worldwide, including some 675,000 Americans.

"My worst fear is we will see what we saw happening in other countries, where people were dying on the streets," he said on NBC's Meet the Press. "The health care system is breaking, literally breaking."

Pfizer announced Nov 9 that its vaccine demonstrated more than 90 percent effectiveness and no serious bad reactions in early trial results. The company plans to ask the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency authorization later this month once it collects more safety data for another week or two. It will manufacture enough doses for 15 million to 20 million people. Americans will get it for free.

Other vaccine makers are also in the final phase of testing their formulations, and Fauci said he expects those vaccines will also be highly effective.

He stressed the arrival of vaccines won't be like flipping a switch to return to normal life. He said Americans will have to keep up preventive measures such as wearing masks, social distancing and washing their hands well into next year.

Asked how he thought history would remember the US government's response to the pandemic, Fauci said, "Obviously it's not going to be a good report, because of the extent of suffering that we've had."

He added, however, that the answer was complex, and that many variables were involved in the failure, including the nation's "flair of independence" and the fact that many Americans simply "don't want to be told what to do".

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