President-elect Joe Biden named members of his Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board just as we got a new kind of reminder of the huge task he will face in handling the pandemic. As cases and hospitalizations continue to rise and many people remain in a partisan state of denial, the challenge of controlling the spread of the virus has been clear. Now there’s a more hopeful challenge on the horizon: distributing a vaccine.
Pfizer announced early data showing a more than 90% effectiveness rate for its vaccine, and said that it expects to request emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration later this month. By the end of the year the company expects to have enough doses of the two-dose vaccine for 15 to 20 million people. If these early results hold up and the company has that many doses, it’s great news. It’s also a huge logistical challenge, since the vaccine needs to be stored at extremely cold temperatures and people need to get their two doses three weeks apart. There are additional questions about who gets the first available doses, a process that needs to be administered fairly and transparently. Fair, transparent decision-making and competence at logistics—do these sound like things Team Trump will do well if the vaccine is available before Biden is inaugurated?
At one time or another, Biden’s COVID-19 team will have to administer vaccine distribution. The Pfizer news suggests it may be sooner rather than later and that Biden may be inheriting a process Donald Trump has already messed up. “I congratulate the brilliant women and men who helped produce this breakthrough and to give us such cause for hope,” Biden said in a statement responding to the Pfizer news.
But he also warned that “the end of the battle against COVID-19 is many months away,” because even if the timeline stays in place, “it will be many more months before there is widespread vaccination in this country.” For that reason, Biden again emphasized the importance of continuing to wear masks and practice social distancing.
Mike Pence tried to take a victory lap, claiming credit for the vaccine news—but “We were never part of the Warp Speed,” Pfizer’s head of vaccine research had already said on the record. “We have never taken any money from the U.S. government, or from anyone.”
The advisory board Biden announced is co-chaired by former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, former FDA Commissioner David Kessler, and Marcella Nunez-Smith, associate dean for health equity research at the Yale School of Medicine. Nunez-Smith is an especially significant choice, since she studies discrimination in the healthcare system, an important topic in a pandemic that has hit Black and Latino communities so hard.
”Dealing with the coronavirus pandemic is one of the most important battles our administration will face, and I will be informed by science and by experts,” Biden said in a statement. “The advisory board will help shape my approach to managing the surge in reported infections; ensuring vaccines are safe, effective, and distributed efficiently, equitably, and free; and protecting at-risk populations.”
The board also includes Dr. Luciana Borio, who was until 2019 director for medical and biodefense preparedness on Trump’s National Security Council; Dr. Rick Bright, the former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority who became a whistleblower over the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic; Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, of the University of Pennsylvania; Dr. Atul Gawande, of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital; University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy director Dr. Michael Osterholm; University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine professor Dr. Eric Goosby, who was global AIDS coordinator under President Barack Obama; Dr. Celine Gounder, of New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation executive vice president Dr. Julie Morita; the Global Health Council’s Dr. Loyce Pace; and Dr. Robert Rodriguez, another UCSF School of Medicine professor.
Biden is, as promised, taking the coronavirus pandemic seriously and putting together a group of scientists to advise him. Unfortunately, Team Trump can be expected to stay in Biden’s way as he tries to prepare a robust public health response to the pandemic while Trump himself has a sustained temper tantrum over losing.
