Covid 19 coronavirus: US President Donald Trump angered by the delay in the authorization of the vaccine

US President Donald Trump has expressed frustration at the time that the US Food and Drug Administration must issue an emergency use authorization for the coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer.

Last night, after a day-long hearing, an FDA advisory committee voted to recommend approval of the vaccine.

FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn issued a statement promising that the organization would act “quickly” to finalize an official authorization.

It has not been fast enough to satisfy Trump.

The president went after Hahn on Twitter today, calling the FDA a “big, old, slow turtle” and ordering its head to “catch the prey [sic] vaccines available now. “

“Stop playing and start saving lives !!!” he said.

A few hours later, The Washington Post reported that Trump’s White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows had told Hahn to submit his resignation if the agency did not issue authorization by the end of the day.

The Post says the Meadows warning prompted the FDA to advance its schedule from Saturday morning (US time) to Friday.

Hahn denied the newspaper’s information, calling it “a misrepresentation” of his phone call with Meadows.

“The FDA was encouraged to continue to work quickly on the US application for Pfizer-BioNTech,” he said.

“The FDA is committed to issuing this authorization quickly.”

The vaccine in question has been shown to be 95% effective in clinical trials. Some other countries, including the UK and Canada, have already authorized its use.

Tens of millions of doses are expected to be distributed to front-line health care workers and vulnerable populations in the United States before the end of December.

However, no vaccine will be available to the general American public for months. And that in-between period will be especially dangerous, as new infections, deaths and hospitalizations are on the rise in most parts of the country.

This week, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), warned that the virus would kill more people each day in the coming months than those who died in the terrorist attacks on September 11. September.

“We’re in the time frame right now where, probably over the next 60 to 90 days, we’re going to have more deaths per day than we had on 9/11 or we had at Pearl Harbor,” Redfield said at an organized event. by the Council on Foreign Relations.

“The reality is that the approval of the vaccine this week is not really going to affect that, I think, to any degree for the next 60 days.”

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 killed 2,977 people. Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 killed 2,403 and prompted the United States to enter World War II.

If the United States averages 3,000 deaths per day for the next two months, that would mean another 180,000 deaths in mid-February. Extend it to three months and that would be around 270,000 deaths in mid-March.

That latest number would nearly double the country’s current death toll of 292,000, already the worst in the world by far.

According to the Covid Tracking Project, the US has an average of 205,000 new cases each day and 2,300 deaths.

Both numbers continue to rise sharply. It has exceeded 3,000 deaths in each of the last two days. Meanwhile, 107,000 Americans are hospitalized.

These figures are the highest they have ever been and are worse than the respective peaks of the first two waves in the country.

For example, daily infections only peaked at 35,000 during the first wave in April.

Covid Exit Strategy, which tracks the situation in each of the 50 US states, reports that 49 are experiencing an “uncontrolled” spread of the virus. The only exception is Hawaii.

Trump has remained focused on making the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines available to the public, rather than trying to contain any spread of the virus.

The president took a break from tweeting about his electoral defeat on Tuesday for an event that highlighted Operation Warp Speed, his administration’s program designed to accelerate the development and distribution of Covid vaccines.

That show has been a success so far. It allowed companies like Pfizer to invest heavily in development, knowing there would be a guaranteed payoff later if they could create an effective vaccine.

Trump spent most of his statement at Tuesday’s event praising the speed at which vaccines had been developed.

“We are here to discuss a monumental national achievement. From the moment the coronavirus invaded our shores, we jumped into action to develop a safe and effective vaccine at breakneck speed,” he said.

“We were able to do things at a level that no one had seen before. The gold standard vaccine has been done in less than nine months.

“We believe that by spring we will be in a position that no one would have thought possible a few months ago. Unbelievable, really amazing. They say it’s a miracle, and I think it’s true.

“When America faces a challenge, we overcome it, and we always manage to overcome all difficulties and overcome all obstacles. And I think they will see that in the coming months. The numbers should shoot down.”