Incumbent United States President Donald Trump on Monday accused the US Food and Drug Administration and drug manufacturer Pfizer of withholding the announcement on Covid-19 vaccine ahead of the presidential elections in the country to deny him a “vaccine win”.
His comments came after Pfizer and German biotechnology company BioNTech on Monday announced that their coronavirus vaccine was more than 90% effective in phase three clinical trials.
In a series of tweets, Trump claimed that the had always maintained “Pfizer and the others would only announce a vaccine after the election” and that the US Food and Drug Administration “should have announced it earlier, not for political purposes, but for saving lives.”
He also claimed that the vaccine would not have been available “for another four years”, “if Joe Biden were President”.
Trump did not give any evidence to back his claim and his comment on Biden was despite the fact that his election to the White House has been called.
Meanwhile, incumbent Vice President Mike Pence sought to take credit for the vaccine on behalf of the Trump administration, thanking a “public-private partnership”.
On the other hand, the office of President-elect Joe Biden issued a statement congratulating “the brilliant women and men” involved with the development of the vaccine. The statement, however, urged people to continue to maintain Covid-19 protocols, adding that “it will be many more months before there is widespread vaccination” in US.
The US has been registering record-high infection numbers in recent days in what is being called the “third wave” of the infection in the country. It has now become the first country to cross the grim mark of 1 crore cases.
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