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Promised Vaccine Stockpile Doesn't Even Exist? Governors Demand Trump 'Answer Immediately for This Deception'
States "thought they were getting more doses and they planned for more doses and opened up to 65 and up, thinking they were getting more."
Jan 14, 2021
Earlier this week, the White House said the federal government would soon release coronavirus vaccine doses stored for second shots, but governors expecting increased shipments discovered Friday that no national stockpile exists, and now they are demanding that President Donald Trump's administration be held accountable for deceiving the American public.
"Governors were told repeatedly by [the Department of Health and Human Services] there was a strategic reserve of vaccines, and this week, the American people were told it'd be released to increase supply of vaccine," tweeted Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) on Friday. "It appears now that no reserve exists. The Trump admin. must answer immediately for this deception."
State officials nationwide--who on Tuesday had been instructed by HHS Secretary Alex Azar to broaden inoculation eligibility criteria--learned roughly 72 hours later that the so-called vaccine reserve had already been exhausted by the time they were told to plan for a surge in supply.
"The Trump administration had already begun shipping out what was available beginning at the end of December, taking second doses directly off the manufacturing line," The Washington Post reported Friday.
"Health officials across the country who had anticipated their extremely limited vaccine supply as much as doubling beginning next week are confronting the reality that their allocations will remain largely flat, dashing hopes of dramatically expanding access for millions of elderly people and those with high-risk medical conditions," the Post reported.
"Health officials in some cities and states were informed in recent days about the reality of the situation," the newspaper noted, "while others are still in the dark."
Like Inslee, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) tweeted Friday that she received "disturbing news" on Thursday about the absence of a federal stockpile. She said the news was confirmed by Gen. Gustave Perna of Operation Warp Speed, which is overseeing vaccine distribution efforts.
"I am demanding answers from the Trump administration," said Brown. "I am shocked and appalled that they have set an expectation on which they could not deliver, with such grave consequences."
"This is deception on a national scale," she added. "Oregon's seniors, teachers, all of us, were depending on the promise of Oregon's share of the federal reserve of vaccines being released to us."
\u201cWILL ANY House Committee hold an emergency meeting?\n\nHouse Oversight?\n\nThe Special COVID-19 panel?\n\nEnergy & Commerce?\u201d— Jeff Hauser (@Jeff Hauser) 1610731418
While the White House's "initial policy was to hold back second doses to protect against the possibility of manufacturing disruptions," unnamed state and local health officials told the Post that the "approach shifted in recent weeks."
Health officials knowledgeable about the matter were told that Operation Warp Speed "stopped stockpiling second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at the end of last year," the Post noted. "The last shots held in reserve of Moderna's supply, meanwhile, began shipping out over the weekend." As the newspaper reported:
The shift, in both cases, had to do with increased confidence in the supply chain, so that Operation Warp Speed leaders felt they could reliably anticipate the availability of doses for booster shots--required three weeks later in the case of the Pfizer-BioNTech product and four weeks later under Moderna's protocol.
But it also meant there was no stockpile of second doses waiting to be shipped, as Trump administration officials suggested this week.
State and local officials are "angry and bewildered by the shifting directions and changing explanations of supply," the Post reported. As one unnamed official put it, states "thought they were getting more doses and they planned for more doses and opened up to 65 and up, thinking they were getting more."
\u201chow many more appalling fuckups can Trump fit in before he finally leaves office, I wonder https://t.co/C7huSgZfRV\u201d— ryan cooper (@ryan cooper) 1610727890
Robert Cruickshank, campaign director at Demand Progress, called the Trump administration's bait-and-switch on stockpiled vaccines "horrific."
Critics say that news of the nonexistent reserve of doses underscores the extent to which the federal government has bungled the vaccine rollout, along with the broader response to the Covid-19 pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 390,000 people--and counting--in the U.S. alone.
The Associated Pressreported Friday that less than 2% of the population in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina had received the first dose of the vaccine at the start of this week, according to data from those states and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In late December, Common Dreams reported that if the U.S. failed to accelerate the rate at which vaccines were allocated, it would take nearly a decade for the country to inoculate an adequate number of Americans to get the pandemic under control.
"We should have had major warehouses located around the country so that as soon as the FDA greenlighted a vaccine, it could quickly be delivered to hospitals and clinics in every corner of the country," Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, argued at the time. "We should have been prepared to start inoculating millions of people the day a vaccine was approved. This is a massive policy failure."
To make up for the slow start, Cruickshank said that President-elect Joe Biden "needs to immediately use the Defense Production Act to massively speed up vaccinations."
Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Friday wrote a letter to the heads of Operation Warp Speed in which the congresswomen explain how to "fully embrace using the Defense Production Act to bolster our vaccine supply."
"Thousands are dying from Covid-19 each day," Porter said. "We can't waste anymore time."
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House Democrats Subpoena HHS and CDC Chiefs Over Alleged Political Interference in Covid-19 Response
"The subpoenas were necessary because... efforts to interfere with scientific work at CDC were far more extensive and dangerous than previously known," asserted Rep. James Clyburn.
Dec 20, 2020
Accusing top Trump health officials of "extensive and dangerous" political interference in the coronavirus pandemic response, House Democrats on Monday subpoenaed the heads of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to compel them to produce documents concerning the alleged meddling.
"Over a period of four months, as coronavirus cases and deaths rose around the country, Trump administration appointees attempted to alter or block at least 13 scientific reports related to the virus."
--Rep. James Clyburn
Axiosreports the subpoenas from the House Select Subcomittee on the Coronavirus Crisis were issued to HHS Secretary Alex Azar and CDC Director Robert Redfield. Democrats are accusing HHS and CDC officials of altering more than a dozen scientific reports over a four-month period earlier this year, as well as of postponing publication of peer-reviewed articles on the virus.
"The subpoenas were necessary because the select subcommittee's investigation has revealed that efforts to interfere with scientific work at CDC were far more extensive and dangerous than previously known," Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the subcommittee chairman, wrote in a letter (pdf) explaining the action. "HHS has made clear that it will not provide a timely and complete response to the... subcommittee's requests on a voluntary basis."
\u201c#NEWS: Chair @WhipClyburn issues subpoenas to @HHSgov @SecAzar and @CDCDirector Redfield on political meddling in CDC\u2019s coronavirus response; new documents reveal months-long campaign to alter scientific reports and bully career employees. #EndTheInterference\n\nRead more \u2b07\ufe0f\u2b07\ufe0f\u201d— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis (@Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis) 1608564673
The letter alleges that "over a period of four months, as coronavirus cases and deaths rose around the country, Trump administration appointees attempted to alter or block at least 13 scientific reports related to the virus."
Furthermore, it states that "documents show that HHS officials also attempted to muzzle CDC scientists by retaliating against career employees who provided truthful information to the public and targeting CDC staff with what one employee described as a 'pattern of hostile and threatening behavior.'"
The letter continues:
These unprecedented efforts to influence CDC's reports and bully its staff occurred at the same time HHS officials were privately advocating for a 'herd immunity' strategy to spread the coronavirus widely among Americans, as the select subcommittee revealed in a December 16, 2020 staff memorandum. The select subcommittee needs to obtain all the documents sought... to understand who in the Trump administration was responsible for this political pressure campaign, whether it was intended to cripple the nation's coronavirus response in a misguided effort to achieve herd immunity, and what steps must be taken to end this outrageous conduct and protect American lives.
Paul Alexander, a Trump appointee at HHS and formerly a science adviser to HHS assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, is a leading proponent of the herd immunity strategy. On July 4 he sent an email to colleagues asserting that "kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle-aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk... so we use them to develop herd [immunity]... We want them infected."
"Kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle-aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk... so we use them to develop herd [immunity]... We want them infected."
--Paul Alexander, former HHS official
Dr. Charlotte Kent, who is responsible for the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, testified before subcommittee staff earlier this month that she was instructed to delete an August 8 email (pdf) sent by Alexander regarding Covid-19 risk in young people.
Kent said the email concerned an effort to interfere in a CDC report detailing Covid-19 youth risks during the period when President Donald Trump was pressuring school districts across the nation to reopen.
"I was instructed to delete the email," Kent testified. She also said she was told the order to destroy the evidence came from Redfield.
Both Alexander and Caputo have left their positions amid the controversy.
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CDC Official Says She Was Told to Delete Email on Kids' Covid-19 Risk to Match Trump's School Reopening Message
"Federal employees have affirmative obligations to preserve documents, and destruction of federal records is potentially illegal," warned Rep. James Clyburn.
Dec 09, 2020
The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allegedly ordered agency staff to delete an email sent by a political appointee of President Donald Trump seeking to alter a scientific report on corovanirus health risks in children, a CDC official told Congress this week.
The Hillreports Charlotte Kent, the CDC official responsible for the agency's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWRs), told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis in a transcribed interview on Monday that she was instructed to delete an email regarding Covid-19 risk to young people.
\u201cCDC official tells Congress she was told to delete email seeking to alter scientific report https://t.co/0wT2fvLsZa\u201d— The Hill (@The Hill) 1607627767
The August 8, 2020 email (pdf) was sent by Paul Alexander, the former science adviser to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo. According to Kent, it concerned an effort to interfere in a CDC report on Covid-19 risks to children and teens during the period when President Donald Trump was pushing school districts across the nation to reopen.
"I was instructed to delete the email," Kent said, adding that she found the directive "very unusual." Kent added she was told the order to destroy the evidence came from CDC Director Robert Redfield, although she said she did not speak directly with him about the matter.
When Kent went to delete the email, she found it was already gone; although she said she did not know who deleted it.
\u201c#NEW: A @CDCgov career scientist told @COVIDOversight they were instructed to delete an email regarding political interference.\n\nWe demand the Department end its stonewalling; Dir. Redfield & @HHSgov Sec. Azar must comply with @COVIDOversight's investigation. #EndTheInterference\u201d— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis (@Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis) 1607616829
In a Thursday letter to Redfield and his boss, HHS Secretary Alex Azar, Rep. James Clyburn, (D-S.C.), the subcommittee chair, voiced his "serious concern about what may be deliberate efforts by the Trump administration to conceal and destroy evidence that senior political appointees interfered with career officials' response to the coronavirus crisis at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
"Federal employees have affirmative obligations to preserve documents, and destruction of federal records is potentially illegal," Clyburn warned. "Federal law also provides for up to three years of imprisonment for willful destruction of federal records."
\u201cDeleting government emails is a red flag and can be illegal. When the email in question was from a Trump appointee seeking to exert political influence over the CDC's scientific reports, that raises even more questions. Preserving records is not optional.\nhttps://t.co/teXvgdqVAE\u201d— Noah Bookbinder (@Noah Bookbinder) 1607630700
Kent also told the subcommittee that the CDC postponed the release of a report on a Covid-19 outbreak at a summer camp in Georgia until after Redfield appeared before Congress on July 31 to promote the administration's desired school reopenings.
Alexander, who no longer works at HHS, joined the agency in late March and took a leading role in controlling its coronavirus messaging to reflect Trump's downplaying of the pandemic threats. In September, he tried to prevent Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert, from publicly speaking about the risk of the virus to children.
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