US Vice President Kamala Harris slammed for repeating COVID claim debunked
The US Vice President has been slammed for repeating a “ridiculous lie” about the COVID-19 vaccine that was debunked nearly a month ago.
Kamala Harris has been criticised for claiming the new Biden administration was “starting from scratch” on the coronavirus vaccine rollout strategy, contradicting the country’s top health expert, Dr Anthony Fauci.
In an interview with Axios co-founder Mike Allen, the new Vice President said the “challenge” was that “there was no stockpile” of COVID-19 vaccines.
“There was no national strategy or plan for vaccinations,” she said.
“We were leaving it to the states and local leaders to try and figure it out, and so in many ways we are starting from scratch on something that’s been raging for almost an entire year.”
Allen asked whether that meant the administration was “having to adjust your sights now of what’s possible”.
“Everything is possible – we’ve got to figure out a way,” Ms Harris replied.
“That has to be our standard. Our standard has to be everything is possible but we’re going to have to work like heck to get it done, which means again no patience – no patience for delay, no patience for ‘no’, no patience for ‘it can’t be done’. That’s how I feel about it.”
Ms Harris’ claim of “starting from scratch”, however, had already been refuted last month by Dr Fauci, the country’s top infectious diseases expert and now President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser.
“No, we certainly are not starting from scratch because there is activity going on from the distribution,” Dr Fauci told reporters.
“But if you look at the plan the President has put forth, about the things he is going to do, namely, get community vaccine centres up, get pharmacies more involved, where appropriate, get the Defene Production Act more involved – not only perhaps with getting more vaccines, but even the things you need to get a good vaccine program, for example, needles and syringes.”
He added that the Biden administration was “taking what’s gone on, but amplifying it in a big way”.
“We’re coming in with fresh ideas, but also some ideas that were not bad ideas with the previous administration,” Dr Fauci said. “We are continuing, but you’re going to see a real ramping up of it.”
Strangely, Axios deleted a tweet promoting the interview with Ms Harris which juxtaposed her claim with Dr Fauci’s refutation nearly a month earlier.
The online story does not make any reference to Dr Fauci’s earlier comments.
“They (the Biden administration) were clowned enough for this ridiculous lie already?” tweeted conservative policy analyst Phil Kerpen. “They are bringing it back? Why?”
The claim first emerged in January when CNN published an article quoting anonymous Biden administration officials saying they would have to “build everything from scratch” and start from “square one” because former president Donald Trump left no plan to distribute vaccines.
“There is nothing for us to rework,” an unnamed official told CNN. “We are going to have to build everything from scratch.”
The broadcaster was widely panned for the story, with journalists from even left-leaning publications including Politico and The Washington Post pointing out that despite the Trump administration’s failings, a vaccine distribution plan was a key component of Operation Warp Speed.
In the week that the story was published, for example, more than 900,000 vaccine doses were administered per day – close to Mr Biden’s goal of one million per day.
“Biden advisers keep making this claim to reporters, but the idea they’re starting ‘from scratch’ seems like a gambit to lower expectations,” Washington Post health reporter Dan Diamond tweeted.
“Trump was dangerous on (COVID-19). Many problems to fix. But government officials did set up a system that’s distributed 36 million doses to states.”
Tom Elliott, founder of cable news monitoring firm Grabien Media, tweeted that the “false” report was mentioned on-air 47 times by CNN and 11 times by MSNBC before Dr Fauci essentially debunked the claim.
CNN White House correspondent MJ Lee, who authored the story, defended her reporting on Twitter by characterising Dr Fauci as a “a holdover from the Trump administration”.
Dr Fauci served in the same role under six administrations prior to Mr Biden.
Initially fronting the White House coronavirus response, he was gradually sidelined after clashing with Mr Trump on issues including masks and hydroxychloroquine, and spent the final days of the administration publicly criticising the former president.
Following the debunked CNN story, Dr Fauci returned to the network last month to claim that the Trump administration’s alleged reluctance to follow the science on COVID-19 “very likely” cost lives.
He was asked by host John Berman whether the Trump administration’s “lack of facts” cost lives. “You know, it very likely did,” Dr Fauci replied.
“You can see that when you’re starting to go down paths that are not based on any science at all – and we’ve been there before, I don’t want to rehash it – that is not helpful at all.”
He added, “And particularly when you’re in the situation of almost being in a crisis with the number of cases and hospitalisation and deaths that we have, when you start talking about things that make no sense medically and no sense scientifically, that clearly is not helpful.”
Dr Fauci had earlier told a press briefing that it was a “liberating feeling” working with the Biden administration after Mr Trump.
“Hydroxychloroquine and other things like that, that really was uncomfortable because they were not based on scientific fact,” he said.
news.com.au
