E-Paper
Keep your masks on, Biden says after Pfizer announces vaccine success
Biden, who had made fighting the pandemic his top priority, named a 13-member advisory board on Sunday
US President-elect Joe Biden, who has announced a team to shape his Covid-19 plan, on Monday called Pfizer’s announcement of vaccine test success as “excellent news” but said masks remained a “more potent weapon against the virus”.
Biden, who had made fighting the pandemic his top priority, named a 13-member advisory board on Sunday to “shape my approach to managing” the surge in cases and the search for vaccine. It is co-chaired by former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, former head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) David Kessler and Yale School of Medicine’s Marcella Nunez-Smith.
Biden’s transition team was informed of Pfizer’s vaccine, which the company said has proven to be 90% effective, just hours later. “Last night, my public health advisors were informed of this excellent news,” he said on Monday. “I congratulate the brilliant women and men who helped produce this breakthrough and to give us such cause for hope.”
But he cautioned that the end of the battle against Covid-19 was “still months away”. It will be “many more months” before a vaccine is widely available. This is why, he said, citing Centers for Disease Prevention Director Robert Redfield, “for the foreseeable future, a mask remains a more potent weapon against the virus than the vaccine”.
“Today’s news does not change this urgent reality. Americans will have to rely on masking, distancing, contact tracing, hand washing, and other measures to keep themselves safe well into next year. Today’s news is great news, but it doesn’t change that fact.”
Biden had withstood ridicule for his use of masks and strict adherence to social distancing norms during the campaign.
President Trump, who has not conceded the election and is challenging the outcome, welcomed the announcement in a tweet in all-caps: “STOCK MARKET UP BIG, VACCINE COMING SOON. REPORT 90% EFFECTIVE. SUCH GREAT NEWS!”
Vice-President Mike Pence, who leads the White House task force on Covid, was equally effusive. “Thanks to the public-private partnership forged by President @realDonaldTrump, @Pfizer announced its Coronavirus Vaccine trial is EFFECTIVE, preventing infection in 90% of its volunteers,” he tweeted.
American drugmaker Pfizer, which developed the vaccine with German company BioNTech, announced that their two-dose vaccine had proven to be 90% effective against coronavirus.
“I think we can see light at the end of the tunnel,” Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr Albert Bourla told CNBC’. “I believe this is likely the most significant medical advance in the last 100 years, if you count the impact this will have in public health, global economy.”
They plan to apply for approval by the Food and Drug Administration late November.
Even if approved, it will be months before the drug will be available for widespread use, as the president-elect noted in the statement.
More than 237,000 Americans have died so far and 10 million have been infected. Cases have been surging again, with 105,000 reported in the last 24 hours, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
“The COVID-19 Advisory Board will help guide the Biden-Harris Transition in planning for the President-elect’s robust federal response,” the transition team said in the statement about the advisory team.
Members of the 13-member team will works with state and local officials to determine the public health and economic steps that needed to bring the virus under control, the statement added to being “immediate relief to working families, to address ongoing racial and ethnic disparities, and to reopen our schools and businesses safely and effectively”.
Members include another Indian-descent health expert, apart from co-chair Murthy.
Atul Gawande, professor of surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and at Harvard Medical School, had previously advised the department of health and human services in the Clinton Administration.
Also on the team was Ric Bright, director of the government’s key vaccine agency the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), who was pushed out by the Trump administration after he went public alleging red-flags raised by him about Covid-19 had been ignored.
