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PScientific advisers to resident-elect Joe Biden plan to meet with vaccine makers in the coming days, even as a stalled presidential transition keeps them on the sidelines of the government’s plans to vaccinate all Americans against Covid-19.
President Donald Trump’s refusal to accept that he lost the election means that Biden’s team lacks a clear picture of the grassroots within the government for a mass vaccination campaign that will last most of next year, said the chief of staff for Biden, Ron Klain. .
“Now we have the possibility … that a vaccine will start maybe in December or January,” Klain said.
“There are people at HHS who are making plans to implement that vaccine. Our experts need to speak with those people as soon as possible so that nothing is reduced in this change of power that we are going to have on January 20.”
Lack of coordination between outgoing and incoming administrations would be especially problematic in a worsening public health crisis, said the government’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“Of course, it would be better if we could start working with them,” said Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who has gone through multiple presidential transitions during 36 years of government service.
He compared the process to runners passing the baton in a relay race. “You don’t want to stop and then give it to someone,” he said. “What you want is basically to move on.”
The president-elect’s rapprochement with vaccine makers comes as the coronavirus pandemic in the United States has entered perhaps its most dangerous phase.
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