At the same time, we made sure that there was no compromise on safety by conducting some of the largest and most extensive vaccine clinical trials ever.Īfter the U.S. As hospital wards filled beyond capacity, we needed to develop the vaccines much faster than the typical timeline would allow. Safe and effective vaccines were our best hope of liberating America from the pandemic. Lockdowns, which devastated economies around the world, could only forestall the virus’s inevitable spread. Masks and social distancing could offer only so much protection. With the numbers of cases and deaths climbing in April of 2020 and the economy contracting, we had no time to lose. Americans should understand that the process by which our team helped expedite these vaccines was called Operation Warp Speed for good reason. After leaving office, I watched with pride as vaccination rates rose through the early months of the year, and then with dismay as the daily number of vaccinations declined.Īny claims that the vaccines are unsafe or ineffective, or that corners were cut are not true. I know the vaccines’ features intimately because as secretary of health and human services, I oversaw their development, testing, approval and distribution from April of 2020 until January of this year. That makes it incumbent upon all leaders and health experts to be honest about how safe and effective the vaccines are and urge vaccination. Whether such skepticism is rooted in political misgivings, conspiracy theories or lack of accurate and timely information, there are still millions of Americans unwilling to take the simplest of steps to end this pandemic. They work incredibly well, and more than 160 million fully vaccinated Americans are proof. While the vaccines have had doubts cast upon them by politicians throughout their production and rollout, whether a person lives in a red or a blue state has no bearing on the vaccines’ efficacy. The vaccines that were developed to fight this virus have no political bias, either.Īnd yet the reluctance and even refusal of many Americans - including many of my fellow conservatives and Republicans - to get a Covid-19 vaccine is a frustrating irony for those of us who worked to expedite these vaccines. It makes no judgment about one’s political leanings. Among the many debatable issues around Covid-19 is one unassailable fact: The coronavirus is nonpartisan.
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