President Joe Biden’s most sensible COVID adviser believes the Trump administration has earned more credit for vaccine progression and rollout.
Dr. David Kessler, who has served as Biden’s lead clinical officer since the start of the administration, revealed in his first interview since stepping down last month that former President Donald Trump has the right to tout the good fortune of Operation Warp Speed.
When asked via Politico whether Trump’s management deserved more credit for the speed with which vaccines were developed, manufactured and distributed, Kessler cited an editorial by David Wallace-Wells of the New York Times that said, “The wonderful good fortune of the pandemic Operation Warp Speed. . . The rush to develop, produce and deliver vaccines is a sign of U. S. good fortune. “The U. S. pandemic is so important that it’s a pretty compelling rebuttal to anyone denouncing the country’s failure to engage the pandemic. “
Operation Warp Speed, a public-private partnership introduced through Trump in May 2020 to temporarily facilitate a medical studies effort for several “proven” COVID vaccines and increase approval and production. When Biden’s management took office, the program was renamed the COVID-19 Countermeasures Acceleration Group (CAG).
Kessler said that whatever the call of the show is, “I hope everyone on both sides of the aisle can agree that it’s a singular success, one of the singular successes of the pandemic. “
In 2021, Biden’s management said the original call to combat vaccine hesitancy was taking flight because officials believed the call fueled considerations that COVID vaccine progression was rushed and dangerous.
After the announcement, Dr. Moncef Slaoui, who led Operation Warp Speed under Trump’s direction, said he knew why he had been ordered to avoid using the call and told Science that the superseded call “just escapes rationality and understanding. “
“Somehow, whoever works on Operation Warp Speed thinks, what did we do wrong?” he said in a January 2021 interview.
A few months later, Slaoui told CBS News that Trump’s management was to blame for 90 percent of the vaccine’s rollout and criticized Biden’s management for giving the public a “very negative portrayal of reality” by suggesting he and his team were left without a comprehensive vaccine. plan.
“In particular, we created a hundred million doses of vaccines, but we also incorporated the characteristics of the contract to get more vaccines once we knew they were effective,” Slaoui said.
In May 2021, Trump called Operation Warp Speed “one of the greatest miracles of all time” and applauded his team for exceeding the deadline, which “everyone said would take at least 3-5 years. “
“New COVID cases in the United States, due to record vaccine and early procurement and distribution through the Trump administration, have reached their lowest point in more than a year and are falling rapidly,” Trump said in a statement.
The former president took credit for rolling out the vaccine in the country in December 2021, telling Owens, “I discovered a vaccine, with 3 vaccines, they’re all very, very good. “
By the time Biden’s administration entered the White House, two vaccines had already been authorized, but officials were left with the challenge of receiving a fair vaccine. Kessler also oversaw the arrival of new vaccines, vaccines for years of training, and COVID treatments like Paxlovid.
Kessler said that while Biden’s management didn’t get a distribution plan early in his term, his predecessor and colleagues he worked with in the White House showed that the federal government knows how to “accelerate the progression of life-saving remedies when a massive amount of money is at stake. “
“[The first few months of Biden’s response to COVID] didn’t happen by chance, let me assure you,” Kessler said, adding, “Congratulations to my predecessors.
Newsweek reached out to Trump for comment.
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