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Rudy Giuliani’s rambling press conferences and slapdash, failed prosecutions may seem like a political spectacle, but President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede and begin the orderly transition of government is no laughing matter. With the pandemic raging and a record number of people diagnosed with Covid-19 every day, a bumpy transfer from one administration to another is likely to result in the deaths of people.
With the pandemic spiraling out of control, a bumpy transfer from one administration to another is likely to result in the deaths of people.
This is especially true given the timing of this transfer of power. Just as President-elect Joe Biden takes the reins of government, the federal government will be in the early stages of implementing the most complicated, expensive and largest mass immunization program in the history of our country. On Monday, the General Service Administration said it was ready to begin the formal transition process. There is not a moment to lose.
A competent president would have already defeated the coronavirus. Our current crisis is in the hands of the Trump administration. Its refusal to create a national screening, testing and quarantine system, its regular attacks on mask wearing and social distancing, and its inability to deal with equipment and funding shortages have doomed the response effort. United States to Covid-19.
And now, it looks like we are in the midst of the devastating third wave of the virus (although the United States has never really hit a low enough daily case count to qualify as the end of the first wave).
One of the few glimmers of hope recently has been the positive results reported by the Covid-19 vaccine trials. Preliminary data from Moderna shows its vaccine candidate to be 94% effective. The early data from Pfizer is just as strong. And we’ll likely see other vaccine candidates emerge in the weeks and months to come. On Monday, AstraZeneca said its Covid-19 vaccine could be up to 90% effective.
But vaccines don’t protect people; vaccinations do. And the effort to ensure that every person in America, as soon as possible, is vaccinated is a logistics project comparable to anything the American health care system has ever accomplished. Trump’s teams in health and human services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health have started developing and implementing this system, but it will barely be operational by January 20. This means that there must be an error-free transfer of responsibility from Trump’s team to Biden’s team. And yet, for weeks, Trump’s team refused to allow Biden’s transition team to access the plan. Hopefully the GSA announcement means that will change. But we can’t just assume that will happen.
The effort to ensure that every person in America, as soon as possible, is immunized is a bigger logistics project than anything the American health care system has ever accomplished.
As the leaders of Operation Warp Speed, the coalition of federal agencies overseeing the vaccine distribution plan, told the Senate last week, Trump had prevented them from communicating at all with the Biden transition team. Harris. Why? Because of Trump’s petulant crusade against reality. Indeed, Trump still refuses to accept the election results, hoping that a desperate prosecution and harassment of local election officials will somehow allow him to stay in power despite losing. the election convincingly.
It is difficult to overestimate the dangers of such barriers to an effective vaccine distribution plan. Distributing a Covid-19 vaccine will be a massive effort requiring a whole-of-government response. The federal government will likely have to manage the delivery of several different vaccines produced by different companies. Most of these vaccines require multiple doses and some require extremely cold storage. As more vaccines receive emergency approvals, they will be added to the distribution. This is a project with countless moving elements that will require careful coordination between the federal government, states, the public health community, and health partners.
Withholding the current distribution plan on the transition team risked the President-elect’s team not being ready to effectively implement the plan. But we’re still a long way from being out of the woods – because it’s entirely possible that Trump’s plan will be as unworkable as any of the other plans his team has crafted for a pandemic response. For example, nine months after the start of this pandemic, healthcare providers still do not have enough personal protective equipment because the president has not been able to develop a plan to produce and distribute sufficient PPE. What if his vaccine distribution plan was just as miserable as his PPE production plan?
Biden should now be read into the details of Trump’s plan, as the plan may require major changes. And after hearing first hand from Operation Warp Speed’s top vaccination advisers, I can already see some major potential issues that Biden may need to address.
First, the plan should clearly define who is responsible for each phase. Right now, the vaccine distribution plan is creating confusion over whether the states or the federal government are running the show. Currently, the CDC is leading teams to coordinate distribution plans established by states. But the federal government also contracts with pharmacies to receive direct allocations of vaccines to help with distribution. There needs to be a clear delineation between the role of the states and the federal government so that it doesn’t turn into the same confusion we’ve been faced with trying to deploy testing and PPE.
Second, we need to decide in advance who will pay for this massive undertaking. Those responsible for Operation Warp Speed told the Senate that states do not need the additional funding. It’s absolutely false. State public health officials wrote to Senate leaders last month asking for $ 8.4 billion for a full vaccine distribution, well in excess of the $ 200 million so far provided to the nationwide by the CDC for this company.
As it stands, the plan for Operation Warp Speed only takes into account the transport of vaccines to the States. It is unclear how states, already strapped for cash due to the pandemic, will find the money to hire the public health staff needed to oversee a program of this magnitude, especially for the follow-ups required by a vaccine to. two doses. or equip yourself with things like the cold room. Congress needs to start planning for this funding now so states don’t have to scramble or worry that the money isn’t there when the vaccine arrives. The last thing we want is for states to have vaccines but find themselves running out of resources to distribute them effectively.
We saw firsthand how Trump failed to manage the flow of critical supplies to states in the early days of the pandemic. But duct tape, garbage bags and fundraisers won’t fix a vaccination plan undermined by Trump’s obstructionism. On January 20, the Biden administration will take over – whether Trump acknowledges it or not. But by refusing to immediately share details of the vaccine distribution plan with the new administration, lives may have already been lost.
It’s time for the transition to begin in earnest. Any further delay, and Americans will continue to pay the price for Trump’s blatant mismanagement of Covid-19, even after they leave the Oval Office.
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