President Donald Trump on Friday celebrated Pfizer’s development of a coronavirus vaccine, promising to deliver it quickly to high-risk individuals in the country.
Operation Warp Speed operator Moncef Slaoui said there will be enough Coronavirus vaccine doses ready for use to vaccinate 20 million by December, with 25-30 million more doses available per month. Trump predicted that the vaccine would be widely available by April.
Trump pointed to the success of his administration’s Operation Warp Speed to fuel the successful development and distribution of a vaccine.
“Operation Warp Speed is unequaled and unrivaled anywhere in the world,” he said.
The president also criticized Pfizer representatives for trying to distance their company from his administration’s program.
“Pfizer said it wasn’t part of Warp Speed but that turned out to be an unfortunate misrepresentation … that’s why we gave them $1.5 billion,” Trump said, referring to the contract announced in July with the company.
The president said the elderly and high-risk Americans would receive the vaccine first.
“By vaccinating the elderly and the high risk we will effectively end this phase of the pandemic and allow seniors to reclaim the golden years of their lives,” he said.
Trump also took a shot at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) who continues to publicly raise concerns about the vaccine.
“Gov. Cuomo will have to let us know when he’s ready for it,” he said. “We can’t be delivering it to a state that won’t be giving it to it’s people immediately.”
Cuomo said in September that he would wait to distribute the vaccine until he had independently confirmed its safety.
“I hope he doesn’t handle this as badly as he’s handled the nursing homes,” Trump said. “We’re ready to provide it as soon as they let us know that they’ll actually use it.” He said that the vaccine would be widely available to the general public as soon as April.
Trump added that three other vaccines were in the final stage of trial and predicted that they would also be effective.
He repeated that he would continue fighting the virus, but vowed not to put the country into a lockdown to stop the spread.
“This administration will not be going into a lockdown,” he said. “Hopefully whatever happens in the future, who knows which administration it will be… I can tell you this administration will not go to a lockdown.”