Will there really be several hundred million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of 2020, which would be record fast vaccine develop, or is this just wishful thinking? Moncef Slaoui, former executive at GlaxoSmithKline and board member of Moderna (till recently) and newly appointed Trump official, says the vaccine will be ready. Either way, Moderna (MRNA) has received nearly half a billion dollars from the government, and its stock price has soared. Amee Vanderpool tells more of the story:
Trump Vaccine Czar Still Stands to Profit
Courtesy of Amee Vanderpool, SHERO
The Trump administration has announced an ambitious plan to develop and produce millions of doses of a new COVID-19 vaccine by the end of 2020, a lofty and risky process that stands to shift conventional wisdom about the vaccine process and seems to have yielded substantial stock profits for the pharmaceutical executive Trump has appointed to lead the initiative.
On May 15, in a press conference in the White House Rose Garden, Trump and his deputies rolled out an initiative to speed up access to a vaccine for the novel coronavirus while calling it, “Operation Warp Speed.” At the time, Trump admitted the project was “risky and expensive” and Gustave Perna, a four-star general who oversees logistics for the U.S. Army, called the task “Herculean.” Defense Secretary Mark Esper has pledged to deliver a vaccine to the U.S. and its foreign partners by the end of the year.
Interestingly, this new messaging on the “impending” vaccine has been hyped by the White House at the same time that some states with Republican governors have been re-opening businesses within their localities, despite the warnings from the CDC and the guidelines set out by the White House.
(Trump delivers remarks and an update on COVID-19 vaccine development from White House Rose Garden on May 15, 2020.)
Image by pearson0612 from Pixabay
