COVID19 Update - Day 272

US Tests: 178,095,791*

US Cases: 14,717,065*

US Deaths: 274,745*

Worldwide Cases: 67,529,798*

Worldwide Deaths: 1,543,190*

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

To be fair, Trump only said he wanted a vaccine by election day.  A few days ago, I cited a New York Times article projecting that a #TrumpVirus vaccine would be available to the general public by April.  It turns out there's one small detail the Times overlooked:

The Trump administration declined a late summer offer from Pfizer to purchase more doses of its COVID-19 vaccine, the New York Times reports.

That may mean that the U.S. will be unable to receive more doses from Pfizer beyond the initial 100 million that it purchased until June 2021, the newspaper reported. The European Union signed a contract for 200 million doses of the vaccine.

Pfizer’s vaccine requires two doses to be effective, meaning that the Trump administration secured doses for 50 million people. The administration signed a similar contract for 100 million doses of Moderna’s two-shot vaccine, suggesting that the federal government has secured doses to inoculate 100 million Americans from the two candidates on the verge of regulatory approval.

It wasn’t clear why the Trump administration refused the offer from Pfizer. When Operation Warp Speed initially purchased doses of the vaccine, the contract came with an option to purchase 500 million more.

Forbes reported on Monday that HHS has not exercised that option. Pfizer told the Times that “the company is not able to comment on any confidential discussions that may be taking place with the U.S. government.”

This is mind-boggling.  Even taking into account the likelihood that the Trump administration is incapable of dividing by two, they STILL only secured the rights to 200 million doses of vaccine for a population of 328 million people.

Every day, they find a new way to stun you with incompetence.