- The Trump administration told senators during a Thursday briefing that their vaccine team has not yet reached out to the Biden camp to begin coordination on vaccine rollout, Sen.
Chris Murphy tweeted. - Murphy, who serves on the Senate's Health Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, called the lack of outreach 62 days before Inauguration Day "potentially catastrophic."
- Two companies,
Pfizer andModerna , have recently reported promising results from phase 3 vaccine clinical trials and are now set to seek Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA. - Experts say that while the vaccine news is promising, the Trump administration's refusal to work with the Biden team could seriously hamper a successful and efficient vaccine rollout.
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy said that the Trump administration team confirmed in a Thursday briefing to lawmakers that officials overseeing the COVID-19 vaccine delivery have not yet reached out to the Biden transition team about its distribution and rollout.
Murphy, a Democrat who serves on the Senate's Health Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, described the lack of communication two months before Inauguration Day as "potentially catastrophic."
—Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) $4
"First, there needs to be an integration between Trump's team and Biden's team to assure a clean hand-off of a complicated distribution plan," $4. "Second, Biden will likely want to improve the plan, but he can't do that effectively if he isn't read into ahead of time."
Insider and Decision Desk HQ projected that President-elect
President
Despite $4, Trump is refusing to concede and his allies are continuing to spread unfounded claims of voter fraud. They are now even $4
"Vaccines don't deliver themselves! We need GSA ascertainment today to ensure Americans will have access to COVID vaccines when they are available," Dr. Rick Bright, a former vaccine researcher and whistleblower at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) who now serves on the Biden COVID-19 task force, $4
Two vaccine candidates, one developed by Pfizer in partnership with German company BioNTech and the other developed by Moderna, $4 with 95% efficacy in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 cases.
Both companies are now set to seek Emergency Use Authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for their vaccines, which could then be available on a limited basis by the end of 2020. The vaccines are expected to be more widely available by mid-2021, $4.
The US government has committed to purchasing the first 100 million doses of both vaccines and has signed agreements to cover manufacturing and distribution costs $4, the HHS's public-private partnership effort with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
A delayed transition between administrations can have significant consequences for the coordination of complex projects like distributing a vaccine as well as for $4
The 9/11 Commission report, for example, concluded that the disputed 2000 presidential election, which eventually was resolved in the Supreme Court, $4 between the Clinton and Bush administrations, in turn hampering the Bush White House's ability to prepare for a terrorist attack.