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<ul class="art-meta">
<li>25 Sep 2020</li>
<li>Newsweek International</li>
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<h1>“IT WOULD BE BLOWN OUT OF THE WATER PUBLICLY.”<a
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<h2>DR. ANTHONY FAUCI says that the White House would
not succeed in forcing the release of a COVID-19
vaccine before election day</h2>
<p> AMERICA’S MOST WIDELY-KNOWN expert on the
coronavirus pandemic is no stranger to disease crises
and the political turmoil that surrounds them. Fauci’s
been head of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases since 1984, through AIDS and
Ebola. Now he is contending with a president who is
flirting with the idea of rushing the release of a
COVID-19 vaccine before the election on November 3. </p>
<p> In a Newsweek interview, Fauci was
characteristically frank. A presidential edict to
force the approval of a COVID-19 vaccine before
election day on November 3 “will be blown out of the
water publicly by the people who understand what it
takes to declare a vaccine safe and effective,” he
says. “It would be a public embarrassment.” Here are
excerpts: </p>
<p> Q. Will political pressure to release a vaccine
early hurt the effort? </p>
<p> A. Let’s get down to the imaginary scenario where,
all of a sudden, somebody from the White House calls
up the [Food and Drug Administration] commissioner and
says, we want this vaccine out there now: do it, or
I’ll fire you. If that happens, it will be so publicly
blasted. It seems inconceivable. </p>
<p> There are checkpoints in that process that would
make it very difficult for politics to have an
influence on whether a vaccine is approved for use
before it was shown truly to be safe and effective.
The accumulation of data and the analysis of data is
unbiased. An independent group called a Data and
Safety Monitoring Board is associated with every
clinical trial that has NIH fingerprints on it. And
then you have the scientific community, like me and
Francis Collins, who’s the director of NIH. We have
not been shy about being vocal concerning prematurely
doing an Emergency Use Authorization. </p>
<p> Q. Do you worry that the politics will give momentum
to anti-vaxxers? </p>
<p> A. Oh, yes. Obviously, the statements that have come
out of the White House about the FDA being a Deep
State; the FDA giving an emergency-use authorization
to hydroxychloroquine and then withdrawing it; the
president being obviously favorably disposed to
hydroxychloroquine and me being publicly against it.
All of that stuff clearly feeds into people having an
issue [with vaccines]. </p>
<p> Q. Is there any preliminary data from Moderna
vaccine trial? </p>
<p> A. Nothing right now. [Moderna is] still enrolling
volunteers, and most of them </p>
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<p> have not yet even received the second dose. By the
end of September, we will probably get a feel for
where we are. Q. You have no way of knowing how long
the trial will last? </p>
<p> A. If you asked me to put down my 10-cent bet on
that, I would say it likely would be November or
December. </p>
<p> Q. What’s your 10-cent bet on how effective the
Moderna vaccine will be? </p>
<p> A. If you look at the phase one study, which was
only a small study of 45 people, [the vaccine] induced
neutralizing antibodies and at a robust level,
equivalent to or better than what you see with natural
infection. Historically, that is a good sign. I would
guess that it’s going to be around 70 to 75 percent
effective, but that’s purely a guess. </p>
<p> Q. What do you say to people who won’t take a
vaccine that only works three-quarters of the time? </p>
<p> A. Any degree of protection is better than no degree
of protection. </p>
<p> Q. Will we still be wearing masks and staying
socially distant in 2021? </p>
<p> A. At a minimum, we’re going to be doing this well
into 2021. By June or July of 2021, you may have most
of the population vaccinated. As we turn the corner
halfway through 2021, getting into the summer and
fall, I would predict that we’re going to be
approaching a certain degree of normality—not
completely, because we’re still going to have some
coronavirus circulating around, but it’s not going to
be something that’s immobilizing society the way it
currently is. </p>
<p> Q. Journalist Bob Woodward says the president
intentionally understated the severity of the pandemic
in the spring. What do you make of this? </p>
<p> A. While that was going on, I and my colleagues were
saying what it really was like. I was sounding the
alarm about community spread and other things. To the
extent that people have trusted me and listened to me,
there was no doubt that we were saying it was serious.
</p>
<p> Q. But Trump has a bigger bully pulpit than you do.
</p>
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<p> A. Yes, right. That’s unfortunate that that
happened. </p>
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