Fauci says in fight against virus, Trump should cooperate with Biden
As President-elect Joe Biden’s advisers prepare to meet with vaccine manufacturers in the coming week, Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday said it’d be better for the country’s battle against the coronavirus pandemic if the Trump administration cooperated with the presidential transition.
The months between the election and inauguration day is “really important for a smooth handing over of the information,” Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CNN.
“It’s almost like passing the baton in a race,” added Fauci, a longtime runner. “You don’t want to stop and then give it to somebody. You want to just essentially keep going … . It certainly would make things more smoothly if we could do that.”
As a public health measure — in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, with cases and hospitalizations spiking across the country — Fauci said of the transition starting right away, “Of course it would be better if we could start working with them.”
Trump on Sunday acknowledged that Biden won “because the Election was rigged,” the president tweeted. However, Trump said he was not conceding.
As the transition remains stalled, Biden’s scientific advisers will meet with vaccine makers in the coming days.
The president-elect’s outreach to the vaccine manufacturers comes as the coronavirus pandemic in the United States has entered perhaps its most dangerous phase. The seven-day rolling average for new daily cases stood at 145,400 on Saturday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. That means the U.S. is adding about 1 million new cases a week, and deaths averaged 820 a day as of Saturday, a 33% increase in just two weeks.
“We’re going to start those consultations this week,” said Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, citing Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies.
Pfizer’s announcement that preliminary data indicate its vaccine is 90% effective lifted financial markets last week and gave people worldwide hope that an end to the pandemic will be coming.
Klain said Biden’s experts also need a detailed understanding of distribution plans being finalized by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Pentagon. In some ways, that’s the more critical issue, he said.
“We need to be talking to them as quickly as possible,” Klain said. “It’s great to have a vaccine, but vaccines don’t save lives: vaccinations save lives. And that means you’ve got to get that vaccine into people’s arms all over this country. It’s a giant logistical project.”
Herald wire services were used in this report.
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/35zbuU5
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