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Rant 626: From Worst to First in 50 Days

3/19/2021

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The Eternal Victim is now whining that he does not get enough credit for Covid-19 vaccine development. Trump’s latest bleat from behind the gold-leaf-suffocating Mar-a-Lago is an outlandish claim that, without his brilliant leadership, there would be no vaccines for “at least 5 years.”
 
Like virtually everything that spews out of his potty-mouth, this is nonsense.
 
Although Operation Wrap Speed contributed to rapid vaccine development, let’s set the record straight:
  • We knew about the full coronavirus genome sequence on January 10, 2020.
  • The next day, pharmaceutical company scientists around the world began working on a vaccine. Before the end of January, both Moderna and Pfizer were working on their mRNA vaccines.
  • By February 15, vaccines were in development at 29 companies.
  • The Cares Act, which allocated $9.5 billion for vaccine development, became law on March 27. Operation Warp Speed was first announced on April 29.
  • Pfizer, which didn’t take any money from Operation Warp Speed, began its phase 1 vaccine trials a few days later. 

​In other words, at least one vaccine already existed when Operation Warp Speed launched.
 
The Trump administration contracted to buy 100 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, a miniscule number given that there are 330 million Americans (255 million adults). When Pfizer offered to provide an additional 100 million doses, the Trump administration inexplicably declined the offer.
 
So much for credit where credit is due.
 
Instead of trying to manage the greatest health crisis this country has faced in more than a hundred years, President Trump fell flat, telling us not to worry, the virus will go away “like a miracle;” advocating wacko and dangerous cures like ingesting bleach; mocking common-sense science-based precautions like masks and social distancing; holding super-spreader events; and generally acting more irresponsibly and recklessly than any national leader in any other nation. He led this country to the forefront of failed nations when it came to the virus. More Americans by far contracted Covid-19, were hospitalized, and died than citizens of any other country. Once the vaccines received FDA approval, Trump’s last act as a presidential flop was to botch vaccine distribution. In all pandemic respects, the U.S. was the worst in the world.
 
Instead of acting responsibly, he spent his time lying about a “stolen election” and attempting to subvert the peaceful transfer of power that has been the bedrock, and one of the proudest achievements, of this country dating back more than 200 years. Nothing was more important to him—certainly not the lives, health and welfare of his citizens—than clinging to the presidency by whatever means he could find or invent.
 
Today the U.S. is number one in total vaccinations, far ahead of the rest of the world. Do you really believe that we would be in this position if Donald Trump were still in office?
 
Dick Hermann
March 19, 2021

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    Author

    Richard Hermann is the author of thirteen books, including Encounters: Ten Appointments with History and, most recently, Mother's Century: A Survivor, Her People and Her Times. Soon to be released is his upcoming Close Encounters with the Cold War, a personal reflection on growing up in the nuclear age. He is a former law professor and entrepreneur, and the founder and president of Federal Reports, Inc., a legal information and consulting firm that was sold in 2007. He has degrees from Yale University, the New School University, Cornell Law School and the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s School. He lives with his wife, Anne, and extraordinary dog, Barkley, in Arlington, Virginia and Canandaigua, New York.

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