Warp Speed, the chief adviser to the government’s national program to accelerate the development and dissemination of vaccines against the coronavirus, revealed that he did not know what President Donald Trump’s upcoming implementing decree on COVID-19 vaccines meant.
The president is expected to sign an enforcement order on Tuesday aimed at giving Americans priority over vaccinations before they are distributed abroad, White House officials confirmed on Monday.
George Stephanopoulos in Tuesday’s interview on ABC Good morning Americawhen asked to explain the execution command Warp Speed operations chief Dr. Moncef Slaoui said: “Honestly, I don’t know, and honestly I’m missing out on that. I can’t comment. Literally I don’t know.”
When Stephanopoulos said, “You don’t know? But you’re the chief scientific advisor for Operation Warp Speed,” Slaoui replied. “Our work, you know, is running smoothly. We have plans that we feel like vaccinations. So I don’t know exactly what this order is about.”
Earlier in the interview, Slaoui remarked, “We are comfortable to get the vaccines to the people who need them as soon as possible. Since there are vaccine doses from Modern, there are vaccine doses from Pfizer. We will work with Pfizer to try to increase capacity and put these vaccines.
“We have two more vaccinations from J&J [Johnson & Johnson] and AstraZeneca, which will complete its Phase III trials in January, and I hope its use will hopefully be approved in February.
“We have tens of millions of doses from the proportion of vaccines to the amount of vaccines we need to immunize the U.S. population, as we promised all this by mid-2021, and it’s still well on its way,” Slaoui told Stephanopoulos.
Newsweek contacted the White House and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Rights for comment.
LOAD: Pressed @GStephanopoulos to explain Pres. Trump’s implementing ordinance prioritizes Americans’ access to COVID-19 vaccines before the United States helps other countries, says Dr. Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed, “Honestly, I don’t know.” pic.twitter.com/Wk7ElJKDaw
– Good Morning America (@GMA) December 8, 2020
Slaoui’s remarks come ahead of the “COVID-19 vaccination summit,” which will be held in the White House on Tuesday, where White House officials say the implementation regime will be discussed.
The summit will be attended by President Mike Pence, Vice President Alex Azar, Minister of Health and Human Services, and several private sector governors and leaders, White House Deputy Secretary Brian Morgenstern told ABC News last week.
Another White House official said: “The main purpose of the summit … is to educate the American public about the vaccine development process and its extent, and about the vaccine distribution process and how we will reach all U.S. zip codes very quickly once vaccination is available. approved by the FDA [Food and Drug Administration]. “
The summit will take place two days before the FDA panel of experts meets on Thursday for the final review and possible approval of the COVID-19 vaccine, jointly developed by Pfizer and German BioNTech, which could see 100 million doses delivered in the coming months.
Pfizer board member and former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb said the U.S. had rejected several offers from Pfizer to buy more doses of the COVID vaccine.
Mandel Ngan / AFP through Getty Images
