A White House statement issued on October 27 said: “President Trump’s coronavirus response has saved over 2 million lives and outperformed other nations.”
The White House added: “President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed is a once-in-a-generation effort to ensure access to a vaccine and life-saving therapies. More than 140 clinical trials for therapeutics are underway and effective therapies have already been developed and deployed, helping lower the fatality rate by over 85 percent since April. The Administration is working to make these therapies and vaccines widely available in record time and as affordable as possible. The Administration is working to develop, authorize, and deploy potentially life-saving antibody treatments while a vaccine is developed. There are 4 vaccines already in the final stage of trials thanks to President Trump’s historic efforts. Once a vaccine candidate is authorized, we are in a position to quickly deliver 100 million doses, with hundreds of millions of doses following shortly thereafter.”
Like the Trump administration, governments around the world are banking on the development of a vaccine that will eventually provide widespread protection against Covid-19 and enable citizens to return to their normal lives.
Unfortunately, such strategy for dealing with the coronavirus is like gambling with people’s lives. So far, there’s no guarantee that a vaccine will permanently prevent people from catching Covid-19.
From Bloomberg: President Donald Trump’s chief of staff said the US is “not going to control” the pandemic even as he defended the White House response to the coronavirus after infections of close aides to Vice President Mike Pence. Mark Meadows’ comment, that the US response will be focused on vaccines and treatments, not containment, became a flashpoint for critics.”
From the Associated Press: “Deaths per day from the coronavirus in the US are on the rise again, just as health experts had feared, and cases are climbing in practically every state, despite assurances from President Donald Trump over the weekend that “we’re rounding the turn, we’re doing great.” With Election Day just over a week away, average deaths per day across the country are up 10% over the past two weeks, from 721 to nearly 794 as of Sunday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Newly confirmed infections per day are rising in 47 states, and deaths are up in 34.”
Excerpts from the speech of Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. at the Virtual Conference of the Asia Society: “In his address before the UN General Assembly, President Duterte made it clear: how we address Covid-19 will define our future. For the Philippines, he said, that means putting people at the core of our global response. Hence his priorities: save lives, halt the contagion, keep the economy afloat; let it sink a bit to spare more lives. And reach out to countries developing vaccines. From the outset President Duterte took decisive action, imposing the longest strictest lockdown anywhere, with interventions defined by responsiveness and quick adaptability to a varying new normal.
“He set up an Inter-Agency Task Force. And it got the usual complaints: “The rules keep changing, no consistency; call that a plan?” They sounded like New Yorkers. But that is because the Task Force meets daily and reacts promptly to new data. It’s been with us like everywhere else except South Korea—boy, those people are really smart: we’re making things up as we go along, and when something works long enough, we call it a work in progress. By and large the public cooperated; the fear factor kicked in and increasingly entrenched itself. The economy took a beating so we relaxed a bit; but people still stayed home. At best they brave exposure to earn a living.”
It would normally take years, if not decades, to develop a vaccine. Scientists, however, are racing to produce a safe and effective Covid vaccine by next year. How governments respond to the Covid crisis will ultimately impact their citizens. To borrow a wise man’s words, “every nation gets the government it deserves.”