Trump admin's Covid vaccine lie

If Clorox would have been the cure, he would have gotten full credit for that!

https://news.yahoo.com/so-is-pfizer-part-of-operation-warp-speed-or-not-well-its-a-little-complicated-175429888.html

Exactly, the devil is in the details. Trump admin can't take credit for any of Pfizer's research and development as it was fully funded by Germans. It was only if, or when, Pfizer did develop a viable vaccine, the US government would provide funding to them for mass production and distribution costs.

Had any of the other drug companies that were actually part Operation Warp Speed during their R&D stage come up with the vaccine first, then the Admin could have legitimately claimed credit.

Funding isn't necessary the only way Trump could have helped. What about increasing the speed of the approval process and testing?

Sure, it's great that testing speeds and the final approval processes are being speed up but that scenario is not unique to the US. Every other country in the world that's been working on a viable vaccine have also done the same thing out of necessity.

But other counties doesn't really mean anything for the research that was done in the USA.

True but with respect to the Pfizer vaccine, the entire R&D was completely funded and developed in Germany by a German company - BioNTech - so it's them that really gets to take credit for it. One major concern I have with respect to how fast his vaccine is being pushed to get FDA approval - when normally it takes 5-10 to determine the efficacy and safety of a vaccine - is that it may later prove to be far less safe than initially anticipated.

Not much info on where exactly they make this one.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-09/pfizer-vaccine-s-funding-came-from-berlin-not-washington

"And in March they clinched a deal to co-develop a shot to prevent against Covid-19 at research sites both in the U.S. and Germany. The two companies began human testing of the vaccine in April, before the existence of Operation Warp Speed was revealed publicly."

"What the U.S. did, meanwhile, was commit to buying hundreds of millions of vaccines in advance to ensure Americans were among the first in line if it clinches an emergency-use authorization or approval from the FDA. "

"It's Complicated" seem to be the right answer.

Good article, thanks. The link it contains to BioNTech's March 17, 2020 press release announcing their Letter of Intent to collaborate with Pfizer was interesting.

The Guardian in the UK published a couple of articles earlier this week that appears to show the Germans had actually already come up with the vaccine in March (prior to linking up with Pfizer) and that the latter was brought due to the challenges the former would have faced with distribution.

"By March, when Germany entered its first lockdown, BioNTech had already developed 20 candidates for a vaccine, of which it would go on to test five for immune reactions in a research programme accompanied by 500 scientists called Lightspeed.

The breakthrough came in early November, after an interim analysis showed their vaccine candidate to be 90% effective in protecting people from transmission of the virus in global trials, better than most experts had hoped for."

If you want to read both, here's the links...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/09/biontechs-covid-vaccine-a-shot-in-the-arm-for-germanys-turkish-community

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/10/ugur-sahin-and-ozlem-tureci-german-dream-team-behind-vaccine