President Donald Trump’s administration deserves credit for its vaccine efforts, but the “terrible news is nothing else has worked at all,” says Kathleen Sebelius, a former Health and Human Services Secretary under President Barack Obama.
"There's no question that Operation Warp Speed has been a great success getting to the point in a very rapid period of time of manufacturing a vaccine," Sebelius said Monday during an interview with CNN’s John Berman.
But, "the terrible news is nothing else has worked at all, and the federal government has stepped away from every other piece of the puzzle."
Moderna and Pfizer have reported higher than 90 percent effectiveness in their experimental vaccines. The Trump administration in August awarded, as part of "Operation Warp Speed," a $1.5 billion contract to Moderna to develop and deliver at least 100 million vaccine doses and $1.95 billion in July to Pfizer for the same number of doses.
Sebelius said she gives "a lot of credit to the Trump administration for understanding that the muscle of the federal government, the financing from the federal government, the urgency from the federal government, makes a huge difference," while also praising the speed with which Moderna and Pfizer have made on a potential vaccine.
However, Sebelius said leadership should have been applied “from day one across the board on making protective equipment, on making sure that the health care personnel got the help and support that they needed, making sure that we had a uniform set of communication, messages, and guidelines across the country for how to shut down, how to open up."
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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