Dr. Marc Siegel: I will be first in line, can’t wait to take coronavirus vaccine
‘Outnumbered’ panel asks Fox News contributor Dr. Marc Siegel about encouraging coronavirus vaccine news and a potential Biden mask mandate.
When President Trump first told the American public that a coronavirus vaccine could come this year -- at the time he said possibly before Election Day -- Democrats including Vice President-elect Kamala Harris said they would not trust Trump as to any vaccine's safety.
Now that Election Day has come and gone and Pfizer announced that its vaccine was more than 90% effective in a recent trial, do they remain skeptical?
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During a CNN interview and again during her debate against Vice President Mike Pence, Harris had indicated that she did not trust the president on this matter.
"I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump and it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he's talking about," Harris told CNN's Dana Bash in September.
“If the public health professionals, if Dr. Fauci, if the doctors tell us we should take it, I’ll be the first in line to take it, absolutely,” Harris said during her debate against Pence roughly a month later. “But if Donald Trump tells us we should take it, I’m not taking it.”
Similarly, Democratic Senate candidate Cal Cunningham, currently awaiting the results of his race against incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., expressed doubt in September about the safety of a coronavirus vaccine manufactured under the Trump administration and said during a debate that he would be "hesitant" to take it.
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Fox News reached out to Cunningham's campaign and Harris' office to see if their attitudes have changed in light of recent events, but neither immediately responded.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo also spoke out against the Trump administration regarding trust for a vaccine. On Sept. 24, he said in a statement that he would have state officials review the safety of any vaccine the president supports.
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"The federal government's response to COVID and the White House's dispute with the FDA raises serious questions about whether or not the vaccine has become politicized," Cuomo said. "Frankly, I'm not going to trust the federal government's opinion and I wouldn't recommend to New Yorkers based on the federal government's opinion.
After Pfizer's announcement, Cuomo said it was "good news and bad news." While he did not cast doubt on the safety or effectiveness of the vaccine itself, he did assert that President Trump could not be trusted to plan its distribution. Cuomo lamented that an early availability of a vaccine would mean that President-elect Joe Biden would not be able to take charge of the distribution.
"[T]he Trump administration is rolling out the vaccination plan and I believe it's flawed," Cuomo said. "I believe it learns nothing from the past. They're basically going to have the private providers do it, and that's going to leave out all sorts of communities that were left out the first time when COVID ravaged them."
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When asked what President-elect Joe Biden would do that Trump would not do, Cuomo again railed against Trump, then mentioning excluded communities again he said, "I’m sure the Biden administration’s going to address that."
Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., slammed Cuomo for this, releasing a statement in which he said that "shamelessly politicizing this is dangerous and stupid."