Joe Biden said the battle against COVID-19 was still months away.
Wilmington:
US President-elect Joe Biden said on Monday it was a cause for “hope” that news that a Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech was 90 percent effective – but warned of a long battle to come up.
“I congratulate the brilliant women and men who helped make this breakthrough and gave us such reason to hope,” Biden said in a statement, adding that he received notice of the announcement on Sunday night.
“At the same time, it is also important to understand that the end of the battle against COVID-19 is still months away,” he added, stressing the continued importance of wearing a mask for the foreseeable future. .
He spoke as European stock markets and oil prices surged on news of the vaccine.
Pfizer and BioNTech said preliminary results show patient protection was achieved seven days after the second of the two doses and 28 days after the first.
The companies said they plan to deliver up to 50 million doses of vaccine globally in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021.
US President Donald Trump also praised the news, calling it “great” on Twitter.
The surge in coronavirus cases across the world has forced millions of people back into lockdown, causing further damage to shattered economies.
In the United States, cases have increased nationwide in recent weeks. Trump’s loss to Biden last week was partly blamed on his administration’s response to the pandemic.
Also on Monday, Biden named the scientists who will lead his administration’s pandemic response, signaling his intention to prioritize Covid-19 from the start.
The advisory committee will be chaired by three co-chairs: epidemiologist and former Federal Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner David Kessler, former surgeon general Vivek Murthy and Yale public health professor Marcella Nunez-Smith.
In addition, the board will be made up of 10 members, ranging from immunologists and epidemiologists to biodefense experts and senior public health officials.
Among them is Rick Bright, the virologist ousted by the Trump administration in April from his post as head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the agency responsible for developing a vaccine.
A month later, he warned Congress that Trump did not have a “blueprint” for dealing with the pandemic.
Covid-19 has killed more than 237,000 in the United States, the worst death toll in the world.
According to a Johns Hopkins University tracker, the number of new cases in the United States has exceeded 100,000 every 24 hours for several consecutive days and is approaching 10 million in total – despite Trump’s claim that the largest economy of the world “turn the corner”.
Biden said the board would help him shape his approach to the outbreak of cases across the country and ensure that a safe vaccine is distributed effectively, creating a plan he will begin to implement first. day of his presidency.
Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will receive a joint briefing on the virus in Wilmington, Delaware on Monday from their advisory team.
Biden will then deliver remarks on the coronavirus and the economic recovery.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
