I watched President Biden's speech on the pandemic last night. He spoke with sympathy of the pain the country has been through and spent a lot of time emphasizing his efforts at vaccination. I think he could have emphasized more the large discrepancy in the distribution of the pain between his coastal constituents who were able to work and educate their children at home and the little guys who had to work in place, or had their businesses locked down or who didn't have good home computer networks. But, fair enough, it's been a problem for all of us in different ways.
His discussion of the vaccination efforts is what concerns me. Once again, he called for us to come together as we did to defeat the enemy in WW2. But how much unity is expressed in talking about the vaccines as if they appeared de novo and, but for his efforts, would lag behind in their administration.
In fact, the development and rollout of our effective vaccines was an outstanding accomplishment of the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed. To my mind this was probably the most successful example of cooperation between government and industry to address a major threat since the mobilization for munitions production in WW2. The development of these generally safe and highly effective vaccines in a previously unheard of 9-month period was a dramatic example of the tremendous skill and capacity of our often-criticized pharmaceutical industry. But it was the can do spirit of a developer controlling the usually overly bureaucratic federal government that made it all possible.
The concept of messenger RNA technology, used by both Pfizer and Moderna, has been around for a few years, but had never been developed for clinical use, among other reasons because of financial risk. Operation Warp Speed, a joint effort of the Trump departments of HHS and DOD, accepted the risk instead, not only giving direct financial support, but guaranteeing purchase of the final product of the drug companies. In addition it also streamlined the usually ponderous workings of the FDA to expedite it's various expert committee meetings.
All this allowed the pharmaceutical companies not to take shortcuts as is commonly assumed but to do their extremely expensive clinical trials expeditiously and to manufacture millions of doses of their vaccines all while the vitally important clinical trials for safety and efficacy were ongoing. Thus they were ready to release millions of doses of their product, with the assistance of the military in distribution, on day one after their approval.
Mr. Biden touted his administration's recent purchase of 100 million vaccine doses. The fact is that the Trump administration guaranteed purchase of hundreds of millions of doses, even before they were proven safe and effective and authorized by the FDA in mid-December. Altogether 200 million doses each of both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were purchased. Mr. Biden promised to deliver 100 million vaccinations in his first 100 days, but on the day before he took office 1.2 million doses were administered. In fact the major limiting factor in administering vaccinations thus far has been the capacity of the pharmaceutical companies to produce them, and that in turn due to limitations in workers with the proper skills to do the job.
Take a look at the attached graph which shows vaccinations administered since they were first released in December. What you see is a steady rise over that period without any notable change since January 20th when President Biden was inaugurated.
Ladies and gentlemen, actions speak louder than words.
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
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