The Coronavirus Warp Speed Vaccine Pitch that Never Made it to Home Plate
After a year and 400,000 American deaths from lack of Presidential honesty and direction, ex-President Impeach II, claimed success of the Warp Speed Vaccine development in one year, instead of the “usual 10 years”. As usual for the 30,000 lie record holder, everything he said was false.
The Operation Warp Speed was understood to develop four or six vaccines and produce enough and distribute them, so that on day one of their approval, everybody in the country would get their first shot, with a guaranteed second shot waiting for them in a month. Everybody in the country and world is celebrating that the first two of the mRNA vaccines ever made turned out to be 95% effective. We were being conditioned for a year to settle for a vaccine that was only 50% effective, although later we were told that herd immunity would take 70-85% of the public getting vaccinated.
At $20 a shot, or $40 for two to vaccinate, for the 330 million Americans, the would be $13.2 billion per vaccine, or $53 billion for four vaccines. Obviously, if we over produced, we could sell the extra doses and still end up only with the cost of one vaccine at $13 billion. Considering that the immediate costs of Coronavirus relief are so far about $3 trillion, it was a 0.4% cost remedy. The true long term cost to the US economy and society has been estimated by Larry Summers at $16 trillion. Despite Trump’s claims that the Pfizer vaccine was developed by US money in Warp Speed, it was developed by the EU and Germany. The Oxford – Johnson and Johnson vaccine was developed by the UK.
Yet, here we are, on February 1, at least two months past the approval of the Pfizer vaccine, and only 50 million doses have been distributed, and only 25 million first doses injected, enough for only 25 million vaccinations. That is only 1/13 th of the US population, or 7.6%.
The Biden goal of 1.5 million shots a day to give 660 million shots would take 440 days or about 15 months. The IHME projection gets up to 60 million vaccinations a month or 120 million doses a month, or 4 million shots a day. For 660 million shots, that would take 165 days or about 5.5 months. To vaccinate everybody, Trump only had a 100 million doses from Pfizer and Moderna, as well as 100 million of others in the future. Before leaving office, Trump got 100 million more of each. Upon taking office, Biden also got 100 million of each, so when delivered, all of us could be vaccinated.
With several variants raging at our doors, herd immunity is now considered at 85%. Yet only 55% or Americans are sure that they want the vaccine. I commented on day 1 of Trump’s Warp Speed, that he was a terrible salesman, since he said that soon there would be a vaccine “for anybody who wanted one.” This immediately made you look uncool to want one, just like Trump made wearing a mask, social distancing, and avoiding crowds look “uncool”. Those proved a tragedy for the tens of thousands (30,000 by Sept. 22nd) infected at crowded, unmasked Trump campaign rallies, and the thousand who died from them (700 by Sept. 22nd).
In Trump’s other Coronavirus high crimes and not mere misdemeanors are self confessed lies on the seriousness of the scope of the infections and dangers of the virus. There is still a mass of Republicans and anti-vaxers claiming that the pandemic is a hoax, and who were misled that it would disappear after the election, when it in fact became worse. Trump suppressed his Coronavirus Task Force member’s reports, and eventually stopped meeting with them and having them give reports. Then he appointed the Coronavirus quack Dr. Scott Atlas as the reporting scientist and leader of the Task Force.
Even before the Coronavirus invasion, Trump canceled the administration’s pandemic research and warning committee, and removed American researchers from the Wuhan virus research center. He also reduced the White House Science committee to a third of its size.
As far as the 10 year vaccination development claim, every year, at the start of the year, the CDC observes the flus developed in the Southern Hemisphere winter, and prepares a new flu vaccine for the fall, to be given to 40% of Americans.
Trump doubled down on this tragedy by completely ignoring the Covid-19 American Carnage at its peak in the two and a half months from his election loss to President Biden’s Inauguration. Not to mention his concentration on undermining the vote and American Democracy by claiming a fraudulent election with no evidence, calling for and inciting an invasion of Congress on January 6 when votes from delegations were counted, and his shunning the tradition of the peaceful turnover of power at the Inauguration.
As a Postscript to his failure, Trump is about to tie up the Senate with his Insurrection Impeachment Trial, at a time when the Senate, Congress, and country have to concentrate on the Coronavirus relief funds, including vaccination support.
So, clearly, up to the end of the Trump administration, project Warp Speed’s first pitch never made it past the pitchers’s mound.
Yes, I thought I was done with writing politics about Trump, but like The Godfather that he is, he keeps dragging you back in.
