President Donald Trump, who has remained low-key in the aftermath of last week's election, is set to deliver an update Friday on Operation Warp Speed, the effort to get a coronavirus vaccine to market as speedily and safely as possible.
Trump, who was briefed by advisers in the Oval Office earlier Friday, will speak at 4 p.m. from the Rose Garden, according to the White House. It will be the first time the president addresses the White House press corps in more than a week.
Trump has been largely silent on the battle against COVID-19 of late, at a moment when the disease is tearing across the United States at an alarming pace.
Fresh off the election -- Trump is legally challenging losses to Joe Biden in several battleground states -- the president is reportedly still upset that an announcement about progress in developing a vaccine came after Election Day.
Some public health experts have said they fear that a lack of aggressive action on the pandemic while the election is being challenged, and little coordination with the Biden team during the post-election period, may worsen the effects of the virus and hinder the nation’s ability to swiftly distribute a vaccine next year.
The president’s relative silence comes as numerous White House and campaign officials have tested positive for the virus in recent days.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows tested positive last week after attending an election night party at the White House. Others at the party also have tested positive, including White House political director Brian Jack, former White House aide Healy Baumgardner and Trump campaign advisers David Bossie and Corey Lewandowski. Lewandowski said Thursday that he believes he contracted the virus in Philadelphia while assisting the president’s election challenge there.
Trump’s aggressive travel despite the virus has taken its toll on his protectors as well. The U.S. Secret Service is also experiencing a significant number of cases, many believed to be linked to the crush of rallies in the closing days of the campaign, according to one official.
The White House coronavirus task force held its first post-election meeting Monday. Officials discussed the rising case numbers and the promise of a vaccine in development by Pfizer, and they recognized the service of Navy Rear Adm. John Polowczyk, a member of the task force who retired Monday.
But Trump, who is said to not take part in task force meetings, is by some accounts more focused at the moment on last week’s election results. He has yet to weigh in on the recent spike in virus cases that has state and local officials scrambling and hospitals concerned about their ability to treat those stricken.
There have been more than 100,000 new confirmed U.S. cases reported daily for more than a week.
Trump recently did express his conviction that Pfizer intentionally withheld an announcement about progress on its vaccine trial until after Election Day. Pfizer said it did not purposely withhold trial results.
Although the president has consistently played down the pandemic, which has killed more than 240,000 Americans and infected more than 10 million people in the U.S., public health experts say the troubling spike in cases needs to be addressed in coordination with Biden's team.
“It’s a big problem,” said Dr. Abraar Karan, a global health specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. “The transition is not going to happen until January, and we are in a complete crisis right now."
In the closing days of the campaign, Trump sought to reassure Americans that the country was “rounding the corner” on the virus. The president took an optimistic tone even after he tested positive for the virus in early October and was hospitalized for three days. His wife, Melania, and teenage son, Barron, also contracted the virus.
Biden, for his part, largely framed the election as a referendum on Trump’s handling of the pandemic. He has made addressing the virus his top priority as he moves forward with his transition in spite of the election challenges. He spoke by phone Thursday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer about the intensifying pandemic and prospects for passage of a COVID-19 relief bill in the lame duck session of Congress.
Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert at Georgetown University’s law school, said that even the good news on Pfizer’s development of a vaccine that showed 90% efficacy in early trial results could be diminished if Trump doesn’t begin coordination efforts with Biden’s team on how to roll out the vaccine. Some public health experts believe the task of persuading Americans to take the vaccine and widely distributing it could be as complicated as the vaccine's development.
“I fear the next three months ahead could be the worst we’ve faced during the pandemic,” Gostin said.
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