Tag: Trump mishandling pandemic crisis

Trump’s New COVID-19 Czar Holds $10 Million In Vaccine Company Stock Options

Elizabeth Warren slammed the “huge conflict of interest,” and demanded Moncef Slaoui “divest immediately.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has slammed COVID-19 vaccine czar Moncef Slaoui’s “huge conflict of interest” after required federal filings revealed he holds $10 million in stock options in one of the companies working to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.

Warren demanded that Slaoui “divest immediately.”

Elizabeth Warren

✔@SenWarren

It is a huge conflict of interest for the White House’s new vaccine czar to own $10 million of stock in a company receiving government funding to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. Dr. Slaoui should divest immediately. https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/15/trump-audacious-plan-vaccine-covid19/ …

Trump unveils audacious plan to develop Covid-19 vaccine by end of 2020

Trump deputies left no ambiguity: Drug companies and the government, they said, will manufacture “hundreds of millions” of vaccine doses by the end of 2020.

statnews.com

25.5K

Twitter Ads info and privacy
11.3K people are talking about this

Slaoui, a former pharmaceutical executive, was named “chief scientist” on Friday for President Donald Trump’s “Operation Warp Speed,” a COVID-19 vaccine development operation. In order to take the new role, he stepped down from his position on the board of directors of biotech company Moderna Inc., which is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But Slaoui still owns 155,000 Moderna stock options, totaling more than $10 million as of Friday, according to Business Insider. Continue reading.

Massive jump in Texas COVID-19 cases

Texas reported 1,801 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday — the biggest single-day jump in cases since the pandemic began.

A growing outbreak in the Texas Panhandle is a big reason for the surge in cases. More than 700 new cases were reported out of Amarillo on Saturday with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott warning those numbers will continue to climb as the state increases testing in that hot spot. Continue reading.

Eric Trump predicts COVID-19 is a conspiracy against his dad that will ‘magically’ disappear in November

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump’s son Eric suggested that coronavirus lockdowns were a conspiracy to keep his father from holding 2020 campaign rallies during a Saturday appearance on Fox News with Jeanine Pirro.

With America leading the world in reported coronavirus fatalities, the president’s son was focused on the 2020 campaign against former Vice President Joe Biden.

“Listen, Biden loves this,” he claimed. “They think they’re taking away Donald Trump’s greatest tool, which is being able to go into an arena and fill it with 50,000 people every single time.” Continue reading.

Trump: Without Coronavirus Testing ‘We Would Have Very Few Cases,’ Here Is The Reaction

In a speech on Thursday at Owens and Minor, a medical supply distributor located in Allentown, PA, President Donald Trump wondered whether testing for Covid-19 coronavirus is “overrated.” He then proceeded to say, “And don’t forget, we have more cases than anybody in the world. But why? Because we do more testing.”

Next, he clarified: “When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases.”

Whoa, is that how it works? That would change everything. The sound that you are hearing might be that of minds blown around the country. Perhaps, it’s sort of like when you first heard that Santa Claus is not the one who delivered those presents to your living room. Although you knew that the chimney in your house led to the furnace, it took a little time for you to put two-and-two together. Continue reading.

Trump faces criticism over lack of national plan on coronavirus

The Hill logoThe Trump administration is facing intense criticism for the lack of a national plan to handle the coronavirus pandemic as some states begin to reopen.

Public health experts, business leaders and current administration officials say the scattershot approach puts states at risk and leaves the U.S. vulnerable to a potentially open-ended wave of infections this fall.

The White House has in recent days sought to cast itself as in control of the pandemic response, with President Trump touring a distribution center to tout the availability of personal protective equipment and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany detailing for the first time that the administration did have its own pandemic preparedness plan. Continue reading.

Drug promoted by Trump as coronavirus ‘game changer’ increasingly linked to deaths

Washington Post logoFor two months, President Trump repeatedly pitched hydroxychloroquine as a safe and effective treatment for coronavirus, asking would-be patients “What the hell do you have to lose?”

Growing evidence shows that, for many, the answer is their lives.

Clinical trials, academic research and scientific analysis indicate that the danger of the Trump-backed drug is a significantly increased risk of death for certain patients. Evidence showing the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating covid-19 has been scant. Those two developments pushed the Food and Drug Administration to warn against the use of hydroxychloroquine outside of a hospital setting last month, just weeks after it approved an emergency use authorization for the drug. Continue reading.

Trump sets goal of hundreds of millions of coronavirus vaccine doses by January, but scientists doubt it

Washington Post logoSome warn it’s dangerous to set a timetable, given the scientific unknowns and the danger of rushing testing.

President Trump formally unveiled an initiative Friday afternoon aimed at making hundreds of millions of doses of a coronavirus vaccine broadly available by year’s end — a goal that many scientists say is unrealistic and could even backfire by shortchanging safety and undermining faith in vaccines more broadly.

The Rose Garden news conference added to a week of confusing and contradictory remarks about the prospects and timeline for a vaccine, which is seen as the key to returning to normal life. A day earlier, a former top U.S. vaccine official testified before Congress that he was doubtful about the 12-to-18-month time frame frequently touted as a goal. The head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases testified Tuesday that 12 to 18 months was possible but there was no guarantee a vaccine would work at all.

But Trump and other officials projected certainty Friday that an effective vaccine would be widely available by year’s end from among 14 promising candidates that had been winnowed from a field of more than 100. The chief scientist of the new initiative, pharmaceutical industry veteran Moncef Slaoui, even teased that he had seen early clinical data from an unspecified vaccine trial that gave him hope. Continue reading.

Prescription For A Sick Country

Before June 1, we will almost certainly have lost 100,000 Americans to the coronavirus, along with 25 million jobs. Without powerful government action, this national catastrophe, unlike anything seen here for a hundred years, will continue to ravage the United States. And there is every reason to fear that we will see yet more pandemic disease as this century unfolds.

Yet there is still no sign that the Trump administration is prepared to act with the determination, skill and urgency that the hour demands. Instead, the president consistently demonstrates his mental and moral unfitness to lead — as he did again this week when he idiotically declared that we have so many COVID-19 cases because we have done so many tests.

Which is why perhaps the world’s most respected medical journal has now prescribed a first step toward restoring America’s health. Continue reading.

Trump horrifies health workers by saying it’s ‘beautiful’ to watch them ‘running into death’

AlterNet logoAs healthcare workers across the U.S. continue to protest the federal government’s failure to provide adequate personal protective equipment and ensure strict workplace safety standards to protect them from Covid-19, President Donald Trump on Thursday—standing in front of stacked boxes of medical supplies—said that frontline nurses and doctors “running into death just like soldiers run into bullets” is “a beautiful thing to see.”

“They are warriors, aren’t they?” Trump said during a speech at a medical equipment distribution center in Allentown, Pennsylvania. “When you see them going into those hospitals and they’re putting the stuff that you deliver, but they’re wrapping themselves and the doors are opening and they’re going through the doors and they’re not even ready to go through those doors. They probably shouldn’t.”

“They’re running into death just like soldiers run into bullets, in a true sense,” the president continued. “I see that with the doctors and the nurses and so many other people. They go into those hospitals, it’s incredible to see. It’s a beautiful thing to see. But I really call them ‘warriors.’ We’re all warriors; everyone in our country is a warrior.” Continue reading.

Congressional Witness: ‘I’m a Republican. I Voted for President Trump … I Am Embarrassed’

Mike Bowen, executive VP of a surgical-mask manufacturer, was clearly holding back tears at one point while describing being inundated with requests for masks: “I can’t help all these people”

After Dr. Rick Bright, a whistleblower and now-ousted director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, gave headline-grabbing testimony before Congress on Thursday, a medical supplier whose earlier warnings about the federal government’s meager stockpile of medical equipment also delivered important testimony.

Mike Bowen, the vice president of surgical-mask manufacturer Prestige Ameritech, spoke emotionally about his more-than-a-decade-long frustration with trying to get the federal government to change course and curb its increasing dependence on masks produced in China and Mexico. Bowen claims a lack of action by three administrations helped lead to shortages that ultimately cost lives during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic in America.

“I’ve said for years we can’t wait until a pandemic happens before we do something about it,” Brown told the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health.