Health Secretary says US would only share coronavirus vaccine once ‘Americans’ needs’ are met

Trump administration health secretary Alex Azar said today that any U.S.-developed coronavirus vaccine would be shared with the rest of the world – but only after the needs of Americans have been served.

Speaking to reporters on a visit to Taiwan, Mr Azar made it clear that the US government’s vaccine development program – called “Operation Warp Speed” – is mainly focused on tackling the domestic outbreak.

“Our first priority, of course, is to develop and produce enough safe and effective FDA-approved vaccines and therapeutics for use in the United States,” the secretary said.

“But we expect to have the capacity that, now that these needs are met, those products will be available in the global community according to fair and honest distributions that we will consult across the international community.”

The vaccine research funded under Operation Warp Speed ​​seeks to produce a safe and effective vaccine in record time, rolling out hundreds of millions of doses as soon as the end of this year – an extraordinary achievement in mass inoculation research, a process normally normally years then lasts months.

Some observers are worried that the project may have taken on too much political dimension, with the administration happy to declare success on election day on 3 November. Donald Trump has said several times that the virus is ‘disappearing’ and that his administration will notify it, promising that at the moment it cannot be supported with any available medication or technology.

The result, some experts worry, could be a vaccine brought to market before it is considered effective, and increase the chances of giving dangerous side effects to millions of people without sacrificing their immunity.

Mr. Azar’s trip to Taiwan, meanwhile, is the highest-level visit by a U.S. official in decades, and comes as the Trump administration takes a drastically more hawkish turn to Beijing.

With battles over trade, data security, the future of Hong Kong and the treatment of the Uighurs in Xinjiang province, all rising, US-China relations are at their perhaps lowest point since normalization. ‘of the 1970s.

The Chinese government has now responded with an umbrella to Ms. Azar’s visit. The secretary general praised Taiwan’s response to the pandemic as “among the most successful in the world”, calling it “a tribute to the open, transparent, democratic nature of Taiwanese society and culture”.

For its part, China has warned that the attempt could “seriously damage” the already experienced relations between the two countries, and has promised to take countermeasures, although without indicating what that might be.

The Trump administration has meanwhile blamed China for the coronavirus outbreak. This summer, it withdrew from the World Health Organization, citing the body’s supposed capabilities to China and its interests – including keeping Taiwan out of the organization.

Nevertheless, Mr Azar heard that “the United States has always been the largest funder of global public health in the world,” and said the administration would find new bilateral and multilateral alliances and organizations to pursue the same priorities.