COVID19 Update - Day 167

US Tests: 72,382,318*

US Cases: 5,713,124*

US Deaths: 169,206*

Worldwide Cases: 23,571,084*

Worldwide Deaths: 811,748*

* - Numbers are a lower bound.  True numbers are being suppressed by the Trump administration

The good news is, two vaccines are currently going through phase three trials.  The bad news is that Trump, in his usual clueless fashion, is doing what he can to screw things up:

President Trump has said that he wants a vaccine approved before the election, and tweeted Sunday that “the deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd.” He tagged his FDA commissioner, Stephen Hahn, in the tweet.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows later told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that the tweet was Trump’s way of making the FDA “feel the heat.”

Separately, on Sunday the FDA issued an emergency use authorization for convalescent plasma to treat COVID-19, though some experts said more data was needed. And the FT reported that the Trump administration was mulling whether to skirt U.S. regulatory standards to issue an emergency approval for a potential vaccine before still-ongoing trials are complete.

The situation comes days after top FDA vaccine official Dr. Peter Marks said that he would resign if the FDA were pressured into approving a vaccine that was ineffective or unsafe.

Rushing to release a vaccine before clinical trials concluded could “undermine confidence” not only in COVID-19 vaccines, but “our entire vaccine supply,” Dr. Peter Hotez, professor of Tropical Medicine at Baylor, said on CNN Monday.

“If you try to release the vaccine head of that time, say with only a few thousand [people tested], you could start seeing safety problems after you’re starting to immunize large numbers of individuals,” Dr. Hotez said. “Things could go wrong quickly if we try to rush this.”

President 'I don't take responsibility', whose principal contributions to combating coronavirus have all been counterproductive, is now jeopardizing a process which might actually help so that he can take responsibility for the work of others before the election.

The man is cancer.  And the Republican party has formally announced that their only purpose for the next 4 years is to do whatever he wants.