The Trump administration is redoubled its distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine before Election Day, aligning the timetable for a public fitness measure with the president’s political fate.
The director of the Centers for Disease Control sent a letter last week to state governors asking them to prepare for “fully operational” vaccine distribution facilities through November 1, and for states to give up needs that are supposed to save a personal provider from assembling that deadline..
The CDC followed the letter with more documents indicating to states that were in a position to distribute the vaccine until the end of October.
McClatchy first reported on the letter on Wednesday morning.
This resolution is the latest and most striking example of how President Trump used the fight opposing COVID-19 for re-election.
Instead of focusing on protection and prudence, the president made outlandish promises and raised hopes that a vaccine will be in a position in time for the November election.His public conduct has raised considerations among vaccine experts, adding members of the FDA advisory group, which policy that smart science will lead to the production of a new vaccine, creating its own threat to public health.
Officials from Operation Warp Speed, the administration’s effort to boost a COVID-19 vaccine, have already said they plan to “overwhelm” radio waves with vaccine messages in October, while Trump himself said he was looking for a vaccine “nearby” on Election Day.
In doing so, experts say, Trump is taking a hammer to accept as true two must-have public health facilities: vaccines and the Food and Drug Administration, which is guilty of ensuring the protection of medicines and other treatments.
The August 27 CDC letter sent through Dr. Robert Redfield conditions the vaccine based on whether the FDA has approved one for use.
On the contrary, the missive calls “as a whole” for the State to renounce the protection standards for the distribution of vaccines “which would prevent these amenities from fully operational until 1 November 2020”.
“I think the key to the timing is FDA approval,” Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Administrators, told TPM.”And the timing is simply unknown, and we don’t need to run until a safe date because I need this approval done absolutely and correctly.”
There is no evidence that in phase III trials lately the efficacy and protection of 3 vaccines are compromised in any way.However, the statement comes amid primary considerations as to whether the FDA can yield to ongoing political tension to approve a vaccine before sufficient knowledge is available.to compare it.
“Everyone is nervous because, as we say, we live in very unconventional times,” Dr. William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, told TPM: “The last thing you’d like is a vaccine announcement and as the public fitness network and doctors across the country say it’s too soon, we’re going to wait for more data.”
CDC documents came here as part of Operation Warp Speed, a joint effort between defense decomposer and human and fitness services.The effort depends on a strategy in which the government will pay for the production of large quantities of vaccine while testing the same vaccine applicants.If approved through the FDA, it would allow the government to start large-scale vaccines, drastically shortening the time it takes to develop, test, and distribute a vaccine.
For some, Redfield’s letter simply reflects this policy.Kelly Moore of the Action Coalition for Immunization told the TPM that the letter was about the CDC making sure the state is in a position to participate in the COVID-19 vaccination program.
“The letter relates to CDC arrangements for a COVID-19 vaccine distribution program.Clearly, the purpose is to prepare the entire vaccine distribution infrastructure before the earliest time a vaccine can be approved to avoid delays in the distribution of an approved vaccine.product, ” he wrote.” I do not in order for a vaccine to be approved on that date.”
But others expressed fear of the letter’s obvious certainty that a vaccine would be in a position to be distributed on November 1, two days before the 2020 election.
Schaffner told the TPM that the date of November 1 seemed unnecessary and for him.
“I wish they hadn’t put that date there. It’s a bad idea,” Schaffner said.
For Gary Slutkin, a former WHO epidemiologist who fought the disease in Africa, it was difficult to assess because “no one knows two things: what vaccine trials show in terms of efficacy and what kind of policy surrounds it.”
The two vaccine applicants who have the maximum complex in their Phase III trials each recruited just over 30,000 people who want to be inoculated before the trial ends, according to the manufacturers.Both vaccines require two injections, weeks apart, and started in late July, meaning that only a few of the participants won the full cycle of the vaccine.
“Basically, we don’t know what’s vitally important, that’s what the trials show,” said Gary Slutkin, a former WHO epidemiologist who fought the disease in Africa.
Schaffer added that the key would be to see if the FDA’s Vaccine Advisory Committee recommends that a vaccine be approved.Avoiding, he said, would be the last nail in the coffin of politicization.
“Talk about chaos,” he said.
Read the letter here: