Without evidence, the former vice president claimed Friday that the Trump administration’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan is concerning, expensive, and lacks strategy.
“There is no detailed plan that we’ve seen, anyway, as to how you get the vaccine out of a container into an injection syringe into somebody’s arm,” Biden said.
His unsubstantiated claims went untouched and unchecked by the media, who pride themselves on constantly holding the current president accountable for lies.
Instead, it was Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar who issued his own kind of fact-check on Biden’s comments on “Fox News Sunday.”
“With all respect, that’s just nonsense,” he said, referring to Biden’s lack of knowledge of the vaccine process.
While Biden claimed that the Trump administration’s plan lacked details, Azar said the current plan is quite elaborate and intricate.
“We have comprehensive plans from the CDC working with 64 public health jurisdictions across the country, as our governors have laid out very detailed plans that we’ve worked with them on,” Azar told host and Trump critic Chris Wallace. “We’re leveraging our retail pharmacies, our hospitals, our public health departments, our community health centers.”
“This is being micromanaged and controlled by the United States military, as well as our incredible private sector,” he added.
Despite Biden’s concerns about the vaccine getting from containers “into somebody’s arm,” Azar said that at least one of the vaccines could be shipped to all states within one day of the FDA’s approval.
“Assuming everything is on track and the advisory committee goes well, we could see authorization of the Pfizer vaccine within days after the advisory committee,” Azar said.
“What we’ve said is within 24 hours of FDA greenlighting … we’ll ship to all the states and territories that we work with and within hours they can be vaccinating,” he said.
Operation Warp Speed’s chief adviser Moncef Slaoui also responded to Biden’s comments, reinforcing Azar’s claims there is a plan in place, saying he is “confident” that vaccines will be “delivered safely and effectively to all Americans.”
“I think the plans are there and I feel confident that once we will explain it, everything in detail. I hope the new transition team will understand that things are well planned,” he told CBS.
“We haven’t had the chance yet to sit down with the transition team and explain in detail everything that has been planned and been done,” Slaoui said. “We look forward to that happening. We actually, I think, have a meeting planned later this week.”
