A spark of kindness at the end of the long dark tunnel gave the impression in Arizona this week.
So I think it’s general for us to say thank you.
Scientists who developed the vaccines opposed to COVID-19 and the pharmacists who produce them.
And yes, the president who introduced an unprecedented public-private partnership to do so on time.
Like many Americans, I disagree with many of the things President Donald Trump has done and left unresolved in his four years in office: daily chaos, his inability to unite the country, his control of the pandemic, and, more recently, his refusal to settle down. for the purposes of the election.
But it’s also worth remembering May 15, the day Trump announced a massive company in a country full of skeptics: a $10 billion plan to drive the development, manufacture and distribution of a vaccine to end this nightmare.
“It’s called Operation Warp Speed,” Trump said at a news convention in Rose Garden. “It means great, and it means temporarily, a great scientific, commercial and logistical effort, unlike what our country has experienced since the Manhattan Project. . . Its purpose is to complete the progression and then manufacture and distribute a coronavirus vaccine shown as temporarily as possible. Again, we’d like to see if we can do it before the end of the year. “
Skeptics said this can be done, anyway, safely.
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It would probably take a decade or more to expand a new vaccine, after all. The record of 4 years (papers).
The COVID-19 vaccine appeared in more than a year.
Of course, Trump claims credits for the Pfizer vaccine, the first to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
The pharmaceutical giant has not taken any warp speed budgets to expand and verify its vaccine, but signed $1. 95 billion in federal investment to prefabricated a hundred million doses so that they can be temporarily distributed if approved by the FDA.
I suppose no pharmaceutical company would have invested about $2 billion of its own cash in producing a vaccine before knowing if it could sell its product.
Meanwhile, other Phase 3 vaccine corporations have evolved Trump’s Warp Speed program to the fullest, adding the Modern vaccine, which is expected to gain FDA approval shortly.
The country’s leading infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, called the creation of an effective vaccine in less than a year as a “historic achievement” and said the credits are partly due to Trump’s initiative.
“Operation Warp Speed was a success,” he said in a speech on November 17 at a virtual summit hosted through medical news site Stat. “Certainly, in the vaccine box, it’s a success. “
Add Jesse Goodman, a former FDA leading scientist and Trump critic, to the list of other people who characterize the government what we’re seeing right now.
“This is positive in the reaction to the pandemic,” he said last month. “I mean, the rest sucks. “
And Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
“The assignment of Warp Speed turns out to be an impressive success,” Durbin said Thursday in the Senate. “I pray this is the case. While I have criticized this administration, I would like to pay tribute to them for the effective organization and delivery of a vaccine at the right time, in an almost unbelievable way in this pandemic we are facing. . “
Of course, it’s one thing to expand a vaccine and get other people to take it.
Ironically, those who are more skeptical than the Trump administration’s biggest fortune will be are Trump’s own supporters.
A Kaiser Family Foundation ballot released this week indicates that 71% of Americans said they would definitely or likely be vaccinated, but among Republicans, 42% doubt, compared to only 12% of Democrats.
But I guess if dressing up in a mask is a symbol of government tyranny, allowing the government to inject a vaccine into your body is probably a form of intellectual control.
Unfortunately, Trump doesn’t seem interested in persuading the MAGA country to get vaccinated, he even dedicated himself to doing it himself.
Democrat Joe Biden, meanwhile, has pledged to do so, but has not yet presented the credits to which they owe, and it is a disgrace to a guy who talks about uniting the country.
Thanks to Trump’s initiative, we can now be waiting for a blow to the arm and a measure of hope at a time when we want it.
So teleport me, Scotty, I can’t say this, but thank you, President Trump.
Contact Roberts at laurie. roberts@arizonarepublic. com.