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‘Pfizer lacked courage’: Trump indicates early announcement of vaccine effectiveness could have impacted poll outcome
Contrary to Trump’s claims, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) chief Robert Redford had said that the first round of vaccinations could begin only by late November.
US President Donald Trump on Monday alleged that Pfizer and BioNTech did not have the courage to release the results on the effectiveness of the vaccine they have been developing against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) before the presidential election. Trump said that the United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should have announced it earlier and indirectly blamed them for withholding the announcement for “political reasons”.
“As I have long said, @Pfizer and the others would only announce a Vaccine after the Election, because they didn’t have the courage to do it before. Likewise, the @US_FDA should have announced it earlier, not for political purposes, but for saving lives!” Donald Trump tweeted.
Trump had said in September that the US government would start distributing a vaccine by October. “We’re very close to that vaccine as you know and I think much closer than I think most people want to say,” Trump had said while speaking to reporters, according to a report by Reuters. He had also said, “We think we can start sometime in October. So as soon as it’s announced we’ll be able to start. That will be from mid-October on. It may be a little bit later than that.”
Contrary to Trump’s claims, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) chief Robert Redford had said that the first round of vaccinations could begin only by late November and the entire population would receive the vaccine by ‘the third quarter of the following year,” according to CNN.
Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE on Sunday said that the coronavirus vaccine they have developed has prevented more than 90% of infections after it was tested on tens of thousands of volunteers as a part of a study. “The first set of results from our Phase 3 Covid-19 vaccine trials provides the initial evidence of our vaccine’s ability to prevent Covid-19,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla had said in a statement.
Donald Trump after losing the elections blamed the poll process and said that he has evidence of widespread voter fraud. He continues to claim that president-elect Joe Biden was wrongfully declared as the president-elect. Trump and his legal team have filed lawsuits across several states in the US courts demanding a recount and a thorough investigation into the counting process.
His tweet on Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine effectiveness also seems to highlight that the drugmaker did not release the results fearing it would affect the outcome of the recently concluded elections.
US has recorded more than 10 million cases of Covid-19 and 244,448 people have died so far, making it the worst-hit nation.
