The prospect of a vaccine to protect Americans from coronavirus infection emerged Monday as a point of contention in the race for the White House, as President Donald Trump accused Democrats of “belittling” for political gain a a vaccine that he has repeatedly said might be available before the election.
“It is so dangerous for our country, what they say, but the vaccine will be very safe and very effective,” promised the president at a press conference at the White House.
Trump made the accusation a day after Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, said she “wouldn’t take his word for it” about vaccination. “I would take the word of scientists and public health experts, but not Donald Trump,” Harris said.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden amplified Harris’s comments Monday after he was asked if he would receive a vaccine against COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. Biden said he would take a vaccine “tomorrow” and also wanted to see what the scientists have to say.
Biden said Trump has said “so many things that are not true, I am concerned that if we have a really good vaccine, people will be reluctant to take it. So it is undermining public confidence. “
Still, the former vice president said: “If I could get a vaccine tomorrow, I would, if it cost me the election, I would. We need a vaccine and we need it now. “
The debate over a coronavirus vaccine unfolded as three of the candidates fanned out across the country on Labor Day, the traditional start of the two-month race to the election. Harris and Vice President Mike Pence campaigned in Wisconsin and Biden went to Pennsylvania. Trump added the press conference to a calendar that was originally blank.
Harris, a Democrat from California, said in a CNN interview broadcast Sunday that she would not trust a coronavirus vaccine if it were ready by the end of the year because “there is very little that we can trust to … come out of our mouths. of Donald Trump. . “She argued that scientists would be” gagged “because Trump is focused on being re-elected.
Trump dismissed his comments as “reckless anti-vaccine rhetoric” designed to detract from the effort to quickly prepare a vaccine for a disease that has killed nearly 190,000 Americans and infected more than 6 million, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. .
“She’s talking about belittling a vaccine so people don’t think the achievement was a great achievement,” Trump said, answering questions from reporters as he stood at a lectern placed at the front door of the White House in the side of Pennsylvania Avenue. the mansion.
“They will say anything,” he said.
Trump insisted that he has not said a vaccine could be ready before November, though he did say so repeatedly and as recently as Friday.
The president then proceeded to say what he had just denied.
“What I said is for the end of the year, but I think it could even be earlier,” he said of a vaccine. “It could be during the month of October, it could actually be before November.”
Under a program Trump calls “Operation Warp Speed,” the goal is to have 300 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine in stock by January. You’ve spent hundreds of billions of dollars on what amounts to a big gamble, since vaccine development often takes years.
There is concern about political influence on the development of a vaccine and whether one produced under this process will be safe and effective.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, told CNN last week that it is unlikely, but “not impossible,” that a vaccine could Get approved in October instead of November or December. .
Fauci added that he is “pretty sure” that a vaccine would not be approved for Americans unless it was safe and effective.
Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, has said that the agency will not take shortcuts while evaluating vaccines, but will aim to speed up its work. He told the Financial Times last week that it might be “appropriate” to approve a vaccine before clinical trials are complete if the benefits outweigh the risks.
Meanwhile, the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, has assured that Trump “will in no way sacrifice safety” when it comes to a vaccine. And executives at five of the major drug companies have pledged that COVID-19 vaccines or treatments will not be approved, even for emergency use, without proof that they are safe and effective.
Some concerns were sparked by a letter dated Aug. 27 in which Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, asked governors to help government contractor McKesson Corp. make sure that the vaccine distribution facilities are up and running by November 1. .
Redfield did not say a vaccine would be ready by then.
Three COVID-19 vaccines are undergoing end-stage, or Phase 3, clinical trials in the U.S. Each study is enrolling about 30,000 people who will receive two injections, three weeks apart, and then be monitored for detection. coronavirus infections and side effects anywhere from one week to two years.
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