Steve Daines: ‘Stop the Economic Crisis by Stopping the Pandemic’ with Vaccine

Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) told Breitbart News Daily that the country could stop the nation’s economic crisis by stopping the coronavirus through a vaccine, which he believes could happen as early as this upcoming autumn.

Daines spoke to Breitbart News Daily host Alex Marlow regarding his thoughts on how to revive the American economy and end the coronavirus pandemic.

Daines said that before the Montana people elected him to the U.S. Senate, he worked for Proctor & Gamble, in which he helped develop and launch products regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He noted that he helped put provisions in the coronavirus phase bill, the CARES Act, that would speed up the development of a coronavirus vaccine.

“Before I came to the U.S. Senate, I worked at the cloud computing business, and I worked for Proctor and Gamble. I used to launch FDA regulated products. I understand how you speed up getting these products to market with compromising safety and efficacy. … I was able to get some resources in the last package that was able to speed up vaccines and therapeutics in the hands of the American people by six months. Sooner than otherwise than suggested,” Daines said.

Daines added that he believes the government will be able to get vaccines in the hands of the American people by this fall, and that the ultimate way to revive the economy is by reducing the effects of the coronavirus outbreak through a vaccine.

“You stop the economic crisis by stopping the pandemic. You stop the pandemic by delivering immunity. You deliver immunity by delivering drugs and therapeutics that will help the American people. And I am cautiously optimistic that it will be the private sector innovating that will make the breakthrough here. The appropriate role for the government is to make the backstop so we can have manufacturing processes in parallel with the FDA clinical trial process, so that’s why you see more news out there abuzz about some of these vaccines and therapeutics in the fourth quarter of the year. That’s going to be big, not unlike what happened with Jonas Salk in 1953, when he announced he had the vaccine for polio,” Daines said.

“I think that is ultimately what is going to get us out of this,” Daines added.

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