Will coronavirus vaccine be free to all? Health officials say they can’t commit
Top U.S. health officials say they can’t commit to providing an eventual vaccine for the COVID-19 virus free to all Americans.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, grilled witnesses Tuesday at a Senate hearing on the coronavirus about whether an eventual vaccine will be free.
“Do you think poor people and working people should be last in line for the vaccine?” Sanders asked.
But officials from the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other agencies said they are not responsible for setting drug prices.
“They should have access to it,” said Assistant Secretary For Health Dr. Brett Giroir, but he declined to make any promises, saying only that he will advocate for a potential vaccine to be affordable to all.
Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the FDA, told Sanders that “payment of vaccines is not a responsibility” of his department, but he “shares his concerns” about the availability of vaccines for lower-income Americans. He said he would bring up the issue to the coronavirus task force.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who also testified at the hearing, is one of the highest profile members of the White House coronavirus task force and the country’s top public health expert on infectious diseases. He testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
As many governors look to loosen restrictions meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Fauci has cautioned against opening too soon.
The United States has been the worst-hit country in the world from the pandemic. More than 1.3 million people in the United States have tested positive for the coronavirus and more than 80,000 have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
In an email to The New York Times, Fauci said, “The major message that I wish to convey to the Senate HLP committee tomorrow is the danger of trying to open the country prematurely.”
“If we skip over the checkpoints in the guidelines to ‘Open America Again,’ then we risk the danger of multiple outbreaks throughout the country. This will not only result in needless suffering and death, but would actually set us back on our quest to return to normal,” he told The Times.
Fauci’s comments seem to contradict President Donald Trump, who has been pushing to reopen the United States.
The president on Twitter and during regular press briefings has called on governors to reopen.
“The great people of Pennsylvania want their freedom now, and they are fully aware of what that entails,” Trump tweeted Monday. “The Democrats are moving slowly, all over the USA, for political purposes. They would wait until November 3rd if it were up to them. Don’t play politics. Be safe, move quickly!”
The president said during a Monday news conference, “Thanks to the courage of our citizens and our aggressive strategy, hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved”
“In every generation, through every challenge and hardship and danger, America has risen to the task, we have met the moment and we have prevailed,” Trump said, according to Bloomberg News. He later said the comments referred only to testing.
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn and Giroir joined Fauci for the hearing Tuesday.
Fauci, Redfied and Hahn are all under self-quarantine after coming into contact with a member of the administration who tested positive for the coronavirus, NBC News reports. Two people who work in the West Wing of the White House tested positive for COVID-19 last week.
This story was originally published May 12, 2020 at 8:45 AM with the headline "Will coronavirus vaccine be free to all? Health officials say they can’t commit."
