About Those Trump Vaccine Predictions Do media “fact checkers” owe the President an apology? By James Freeman
“Public-private partnership” is usually a Beltway term for cronyism and the waste of taxpayer resources. But so far it’s hard to argue with the results of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed to assist the development and distribution of medical innovations to address Covid-19. The rapid results must be especially striking to news consumers who were repeatedly told that the president was wrong in predicting quick development of a vaccine.
Back in August, Jane C. Timm and Jane Weaver of NBC News reported on the President’s Republican convention speech:
Fact check: No evidence for Trump’s COVID-19 vaccine claim
“In recent months, our nation, and the entire planet, has been struck by a new and powerful invisible enemy. Like those brave Americans before us, we are meeting this challenge. We are delivering lifesaving therapies, and will produce a vaccine before the end of the year, or maybe even sooner!” Trump claimed on Thursday night.
This is largely false… The president boasts of lifesaving therapies, but critics argue there isn’t enough evidence to back up this claim… There is also no evidence that an effective vaccine will be delivered by the end of the year.
Thank goodness these “fact checkers” didn’t have a firm grasp of the facts. The Journal’s Jared Hopkins reports today:
Pfizer Inc. said Wednesday it will ask health regulators to authorize its experimental Covid-19 vaccine within days, after reporting the shot was 95% effective in its pivotal study and showing signs of being safe.
The company’s plans mean the shot is on track to go into distribution by the end of the year, if the regulators permit.
As for therapies, Mr. Hopkins notes:
During the current pandemic, the FDA has authorized for emergency use several drugs, including the antiviral remdesivir from Gilead Sciences Inc. and recently a Covid-19 antibody drug from Eli Lilly & Co.
And of course Pfizer’s new innovation is not the only vaccine showing great promise. The Journal’s Peter Loftus reported on Monday:
Moderna Inc. said its experimental coronavirus vaccine was 94.5% effective at protecting people from Covid-19 in an early look at pivotal study results, the second vaccine to hit a key milestone in U.S. testing…
Moderna said it plans to ask federal health authorities by early December to clear the vaccine.
If greenlighted, the shot could go into distribution that month, making it one of the first Covid-19 vaccines to go into distribution in the U.S., where reported coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are surging.
The Moderna news arrived exactly two weeks after the Atlantic magazine’s publication of an article titled “All the President’s Lies About the Coronavirus: An unfinished compendium of Trump’s overwhelming dishonesty during a national emergency.” Author Christian Paz included on his dubious list moments when Mr. Trump said a vaccine would be ready “soon” and also a comment Mr. Trump made on September 29:
The claim: “We’re weeks away from a vaccine,” Trump said at the first debate.
There’s an old saying in the newspaper business: No one ever gets fired for calling President Trump a liar. Actually that’s not an old saying, but it should give the media industry’s “fact checkers” comfort that certain mistakes may be tolerated more than others.
The Washington Post has a regular column called “Fact Checker” and an edition published the same day as the Atlantic piece is also not aging gracefully. The Posties wrote:
Trump says a vaccine will be ready in weeks, while his administration’s experts are much more cautious and say it won’t be ready till next year.
What would we do without experts? In this season of thanks we can all be grateful that Mr. Trump was pushing them to exceed the usual glacial pace of Washington’s health bureaucracies. A recent Journal editorial noted:
The Trump FDA’s Covid innovation has been providing real-time feedback and clear guidance to drug and vaccine makers about its expectations. This has helped therapies and vaccines advance and cut Phase 3 trials from three years to a few months. These reforms are one of the success stories of the federal Covid response.
Don’t be surprised if the media’s “fact checkers” now attempt to explain away their erroneous and unfair coverage by saying that they simply meant that even if a vaccine was developed it would still take a long time to distribute.
Mr. Trump’s program could soon be taking away that excuse, too. Keith Zubrow of CBS News recently reported on Gen. Gustave Perna, the career U.S. Army supply officer appointed to lead Operation Warp Speed. The general’s team has been stockpiling supplies of several vaccine candidates awaiting FDA approval. According to Mr. Zubrow:
Perna and his team are ready for when that authorization hopefully arrives. He told 60 Minutes contributor and CBS News national security correspondent David Martin that vaccine doses are ready to ship in as little as 24 hours after the FDA grants approval.
The vaccines and the kits needed to administer the shots will be transported through partnerships Operation Warp Speed has forged with private companies including FedEx, UPS, and the medical supply firm McKesson.
“My goal [is] tens of millions [of vaccine doses] in December hopefully and we expand into hundreds of millions [of doses in] January, February, March,” Perna said to 60 Minutes.
Whether or not “fact checkers” ever acknowledge it, the rapid pace of vaccine development predicted by the president is a benefit to people everywhere.
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Mr. Freeman is the co-author of “The Cost: Trump, China and American Revival.”
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