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After FDA nod, Trump says US vaccine roll-out in ‘less than 24 hours’
Trump claimed credit for fast approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, just after sending out an angry tweet addressing the FDA as a ‘slow turtle’.
The US regulator of drug and food safety on Friday approved the emergency use of Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine, the third country to do so after the UK and Canada.
Soon after Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorised the vaccine, President Donald Trump said the shots will begin to be administered “in less than 24 hours.”
“The first vaccine will be administered in less than 24 hours,” Trump said .
Assuring that he had “made sure that this vaccine would be free to all Americans,” Trump said the administration has already begun shipping the vaccine to every state and zip code in the country.
“Today our nation has achieved a medical miracle -- we have delivered a safe and effective vaccine in just nine months. This is one of the greatest scientific accomplishments in history. It will save millions of lives and soon end the pandemic once and for all,” he said in a video shared on Twitter.
“When the China virus invaded our shores, I promised that we would produce a vaccine in record time before the end of the year. They said it couldn’t be done but with today’s announcement (by the FDA), we have achieved that goal,” he said.
US President-elect Joe Biden urged Americans to have confidence in the vaccine developed by first-rate scientists without political influence.
“These are first-rate scientists taking their time and looking at all of the elements that need to be looked at. Scientific integrity led us to this point. We know the payments challenges and hard work ahead,” Biden told reporters at Wilmington in Delaware on Friday.
“As tough as things are now, I firmly believe better days are ahead. We got some good news yesterday. The FDA committee I should say recommended emergency use authorisation for Pfizer’s BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, but we are grateful for the scientists at these--not only there, but of their great organisations, researchers who developed this vaccine and several others on the way and we are just as grateful to the scientists and the public experts who evaluated its safety and efficiency free from political influence,” he said.
Stephen M Hahn, FDA commissioner, said: “The FDA’s authorisation for emergency use of the first Covid-19 vaccine is a significant milestone in battling this devastating pandemic that has affected so many families in the United States and around the world.”
“Today’s action follows an open and transparent review process that included input from independent scientific and public health experts and a thorough evaluation by the agency’s career scientists to ensure this vaccine met FDA’s rigorous, scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality needed to support emergency use authorisation.”
Before the FDA’s nod to the vaccine, Trump had posted an angry tweet, calling the agency a “big, old, slow turtle”.
“Get the dam vaccines out NOW, Dr Hahn. Stop playing games and start saving lives.”
The Washington Post said that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows had ordered Hahn to approve the vaccine on Friday or submit his resignation, citing sources.
As Biden noted, this week marked more than 3,000 deaths Covid in a single day in the US, the highest single death count during this pandemic.That’s more deaths in a single day than the US saw on 9/11 or at Pearl Harbour.
According to the Johns Hopkins data, the US has recorded 15,834,965 Covid-19 cases and 294,874 deaths.
(With inputs from Agencies)
