WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump, who has remained mostly holed up in the White House this week as he stews over his election loss, 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 disengaged from the battle against COVID-19 at a moment when the disease is tearing across the United States at an alarming pace.
Fresh off his reelection loss to President-elect Joe Biden, Trump remains angry that an announcement about progress in developing a vaccine came after Election Day. And aides say the president has shown little interest in the growing crisis even as new confirmed cases are skyrocketing and hospital intensive care units in parts of the country are nearing capacity.
Public health experts worry that Trumps refusal to take aggressive action on the pandemic or to coordinate with the Biden team during the final two months of his presidency will only worsen the effects of the virus and hinder the nations ability to swiftly distribute a vaccine next year.
The presidents 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 presidents election challenge there.
Trumps 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 does not take part in the task force meetings, remains preoccupied with last weeks 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.
With more than 100,000 new confirmed U.S. cases reported daily for more than a week, Trump has been more focused on tracking the rollout of a vaccine, which wont be widely available for months. He has fumed that Pfizer intentionally withheld an announcement about progress on its vaccine trial until after Election Day, according to a White House official who was not authorized to publicly comment and spoke on condition of anonymity. 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 expressed worry about Trumps silence on the troubling spike in cases, as well as his refusal to begin coordination on virus issues with Biden’s transition team.
Its a big problem, said Dr. Abraar Karan, a global health specialist at Brigham and Womens Hospital and Harvard Medical School. The transition is not going to happen until January, and we are in a complete crisis right now. We already know where this is headed. … Its not good enough to say were going to wait until the next president to address this.
In the closing days of the campaign, Trump sought to reassure Americans that the country was rounding the corner on the virus, and he wrongly predicted that Democrats’ focus on the disease would go away right after the election. The president pushed a sunny public 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 Trumps handling of the pandemic. He has made addressing the virus his top priority as he moves forward with his transition. 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.
Incoming White House chief of staff Ron Klain said Biden will appoint a COVID coordinator who will lead the administrations pandemic response. Klain, speaking on MSNBC Thursday night, said the individual will have direct access to the president and will brief him daily on the pandemic. A team of people underneath the coordinator will supervise vaccine distribution, address supply chain disruptions and improve access to testing.
Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert at Georgetown Universitys law school, said Biden will only be able to scratch the surface of tackling a pandemic that could be a raging forest fire by the time he takes office on Jan. 20.
He added that even the good news on Pfizers development of a vaccine that showed 90% efficacy in early trial results could be diminished if Trump doesnt begin coordination efforts with Bidens 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 weve faced during the pandemic, Gostin said. America is like a ship at storm, and the captain has decided to go play golf.
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Madhani reported from Chicago. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Alexandra Jaffe contributed to this report.
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