Authorization of the first Covid-19 vaccine could have been a great moment of accomplishment for the Trump administration, but President Donald Trump is engaged in self-sabotage.
As doses of a coronavirus vaccine are being prepared to be shipped to communities across the United States, President Donald Trump has an opportunity to mark a historic milestone for science — and show some semblance of leadership in curbing the spread of Covid-19 as the number of US cases crosses 16 million.
Trump’s thirst for attention and praise has clouded even these early days of the vaccine rollout, with doses of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine slated to be shipped to providers as early as Sunday after the US Food and Drug Administration authorized emergency use of the vaccine late Friday night.
Trump has not been pleased watching other nations like the United Kingdom authorize the Pfizer vaccine first — seeming most concerned about ensuring that he gets the proper credit for his efforts to speed their development through his administration’s Operation Warp Speed: “The vaccines were me, and I pushed people harder than they’ve ever been pushed before,” he told reporters last month.
With shipments moving closer to reality, pressure is building on Congress to approve more money for state and local governments that will be overseeing the process of getting the vaccine where it needs to go once it is received by providers.
Lighting a fire under Congress to get aid to states so they can assist in that distribution process — and begin developing campaigns to fight vaccine skepticism — would be one area where a Trump pressure campaign would be helpful in getting the vaccine distributed more equitably and expeditiously.
Kathleen Sebelius, a former secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Saturday night that the funding for states that is needed to recruit and mobilize a workforce on the ground to administer the vaccine to millions of Americans is “one of the big missing pieces of this effort. “
