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The head of the US health department, the CDC, does not normally take calls from the president in person. Robert Redfield, however, heads this authority at a time when a) a pandemic is taking over the world and especially the United States. And b) the president’s name is Donald Trump. And they didn’t like what Redfield had to report to a Senate committee Wednesday on vaccines and masks.
Redfield had answered relevant questions that a potential coronavirus vaccine, even if approved in winter, would not be available to a broad population until spring or summer of next year at the earliest. This is mainly due to the fact that the required amount of vaccine can hardly be produced and distributed faster. “I would even go so far as to say that this mask guarantees me more reliable protection against Covid than a vaccine,” Redfield said.
The CDC director is not alone with this assessment: Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said it could take months for the vaccine to take effect in the population and offer a satisfactory level of immunity. In other words, the new normal could apply for another year. Even if a vaccine was immediately available.
Expert assessment contradicts Trump’s campaign strategy
So the two leading pandemic scientists in the United States agree. Alone: his assessment does not correspond to Trump’s campaign strategy. The Republican recently promised that a vaccine would be available in October, “maybe a little later.” Just in time for the November 3 presidential election, this would solve the virus problem. Cover on top. Many experts consider this to be impractical or even dangerous. And the head of the CDC, Redfield, apparently sees it similarly.
Trump doesn’t question that, he just called Redfield on Wednesday, told reporters at the White House: “When I called Robert today, I was like, ‘What about the mask?’ He said, ‘I think I misunderstood the question.’ Trump generously adds: “I think he was wrong.” The question no longer mattered. Redfield’s answer was pretty straightforward.
Trump is also more familiar with vaccine production and distribution than his department head. “I tell you that the distribution will be very fast. He (Redfield, Anm. D. Red.) maybe I do not know. Maybe he doesn’t realize it. And maybe he’s not involved in the military like me. The spread will be very fast and the vaccine will be very powerful. “
Redfield had also stated that the mask was currently the most effective means of preventing the spread of the virus. Basically commonplace. But Trump sees it differently: “The mask can help. And I hope it helps. I think it probably does. But there are different opinions. There are some people, professionals, who don’t like masks because they are too sensitive to the touch.”
Trump: “I don’t think science has a clue”
Similarly, Trump had already raised questions about the mask’s meaning on Tuesday on an ABC broadcast. When the moderator asked who exactly doesn’t like the mask, Trump said, “I’ll tell you who these people are. Waiters.” He kept seeing the waiters taking off their masks and then touching the plates. “That can’t be a good thing.”
On the show, Trump also repeated his scientifically completely unfounded assumption that the virus would soon just disappear anyway. And that soon there will be a “herd mentality”. He was probably referring to “herd immunity”. But even there, epidemiologists say there will be a long way to go, and the virus would not have disappeared.
The fact that his rival, Democrat Joe Biden, wears a mask does not impress Trump: “Joe feels very confident in a mask. But I don’t know. He may not want to show his face either.”
Trump had already fooled science once this week
Trump doesn’t think much about science. He showed it once before this week when he paid a visit to the west coast. Today, people fight devastating wildfires. An area the size of Rhineland-Palatinate has already been destroyed. For many years it has been observed that these types of fires are becoming more common and getting worse. In science it is indisputable that these are the effects of man-made climate change.
Not for Trump. When a California minister pointed out that it was getting hotter and hotter and that heat records had been broken again this year, Trump succinctly replied: “It will get cooler at some point. You’ll see.” The objection that sadly it looks differently in science, he dismissed: “Well, I don’t think science really has a clue.”
Trump’s call to CDC chief Redfield appears to have had an effect. Redfield later stated on TwitterNow “100 percent” believe in the importance of vaccines and especially in the importance of a corona vaccine. “A Covid-19 Vaccine Returns Americans To Normal Everyday Life”. And the mask, washing hands and keeping your distance are only “currently” the best means in the fight against the virus. He said nothing more about Trump’s promise that a vaccine will soon be available.
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