US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar dismissed criticism from Joe Biden about alleged lack of a “detailed plan” for a coronavirus vaccine rollout, saying such plans do exist and dismissing claims to the contrary as “nonsense.”
“We have comprehensive plans from the CDC working with 64 public health jurisdictions across the country, as our governors have laid out very detailed plans that we’ve worked with them on,” Azar said, speaking to Fox News Sunday on Sunday morning.
“This is being micromanaged and controlled by the United States military, as well as our incredible private sector,” the secretary added.
Azar’s comments follow remarks by Biden on Friday complaining that he and his team have yet to see a “detail plan” for the vaccine rollout, including “how you get the vaccine out of a container into an injection syringe into somebody’s arm.”
Republicans and Democrats have accused one another of engaging in partisan politics with the vaccine development programme, known as Operation Warp Speed, with the Trump administration initially seeking to roll out prospective vaccines even before the election, and his opponents accusing the president of mishandling or mismanaging the coronavirus emergency.
Azar said in his Sunday interview that distribution of vaccines could start in ‘days’ pending approval from the Food and Drug Administration. He had indicated in mid-November the US would have up to 40 million doses of coronavirus vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna ready by the end of December.
An FDA advisory panel plans to meet Thursday to consider approval of the Pfizer vaccine, with examination of the Moderna vaccine to take place a week after that. Azar said in his Sunday interview that the administration may authorize the Pfizer vaccine “within days” after the FDA advisory panel meets, with shipment to states beginning “within 24 hours of FDA greenlighting.”
The US federal government has committed $18 billion for its coronavirus vaccination effort, providing billions in funding to vaccine research by Johnson & Johnson, AztraZeneca, Moderna, Novavaz, Merk, Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline.
A recent poll by Pew Research found that about 60 percent of Americans were ready to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, with pollsters chalking the numbers down to growing confidence in the research and development process. In September, a USA Today poll indicated that two thirds of Americans planned to avoid getting a coronavirus vaccine immediately after rollout, preferring to wait to see that it be proven safe and effective first.
A separate poll by Harris Poll last week showed that 42 percent of Americans would like to see Trump coronavirus task force physician Anthony Fauci take a vaccine first, with 36 percent saying Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama should get it first. 26 percent said they would be more likely to get the shot if they saw Trump taking it, although 19 percent said a Trump inoculation would make them less likely to get it.
