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The Biden administration’s vaccine rollout priorities
While surgeon and public health expert Dr. Atul Gawande thinks that the Biden administration has been hitting most of the marks when it comes to turning around the US vaccine rollout operation, there's one area where they need to step things up: the development of cheaper and more effective antiviral drugs for people infected with COVID-19. But when it comes to vaccine distribution itself, Dr. Gawande believes that the current administration has a firm grasp on boosting vaccine supply.
That's a big change from just a few weeks ago, when the country was essentially flying blind on vaccine distribution. Dr. Gawande can speak to that reality because he was an advisor to the Biden/Harris COVID-19 transition task force and saw firsthand that the Trump administration left behind no meaningful vaccine distribution plan. His conversation with Ian Bremmer was part of an episode of GZERO World.
Watch the episode: The race to vaccinate
Podcast: The Race to Vaccinate: Dr. Atul Gawande Provides Perspective
Listen: Can the United States vaccinate enough of its population to prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths before new and more contagious COVID-19 variants take hold? And will these vaccines even be effective against more adaptable mutations of the virus? Surgeon and public health expert Dr. Atul Gawande, most recently of the Biden/Harris COVID-19 Transition Task Force, joins the podcast to discuss the latest in the global effort to vaccinate our way out of this pandemic. He also explains why people should get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine if offered the chance, despite its lower overall efficacy rate compared to the mRNA-based vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
Should you get the J&J vaccine? Why Dr. Atul Gawande says yes
On Thursday, February 4, Johnson & Johnson requested emergency FDA approval for its single-shot vaccine. In the days since the company first released efficacy and safety data, many of the headlines focused on its lower efficacy rate compared to that of mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. But that's the wrong takeaway, says surgeon, public health expert and former member of Biden-Harris Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board, Dr. Atul Gawande. "This is a highly effective vaccine. It stops people from getting sick. If some people have some sniffles and mild effects from the coronavirus, that's okay, this is going to stop the deadly disease. And that is the ultimate goal of the vaccine."
Gawande's conversation with Ian Bremmer is part of the latest episode of GZERO World, whichstarts airing on public television nationwide beginning this Friday, February 5th. Check local listings.
What are the “known unknowns” about Moderna’s vaccine?
Moderna co-founder Noubar Afeyan concedes that there is plenty he still doesn't know about his company's COVID-19 vaccine, just as there's plenty he still doesn't know about the virus. But he is confident about one thing: "I view the vaccine as the best mask. It's a molecular mask, and once we have it onboard once, then presumably it will protect us." His conversation with Ian Bremmer was part of the latest episode of GZERO World.
Watch the GZERO World episode: A Shot in the Arm: Moderna's Co-Founder on the COVID-19 Vaccine
GZERO Summit: Fighting COVID-19
Almost one year since the coronavirus upended the world, what's the current state of play on ending the pandemic, and what challenges we face towards vaccinating everyone in 2021.
Fortunately, as the virus has grown exponentially, so has science, Dr. Larry Brilliant, CEO of Pandefense and one of the world's most highly regarded epidemiologists, said during the panel discussion on fighting COVID-19 at the 2020 GZERO Summit in Japan.
Science, he explained, has accomplished the audacity of developing successful vaccines in record time. That's why he's optimistic about ending the pandemic next year in many parts of the world, even if the next 2-3 months will be very bad mainly in Western countries.
Part of the reason for his optimism is the great news about the efficacy of vaccines like the one developed by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German company BioNTech, which the UK started administering to its citizens on Tuesday.
For Angela Hwang, president of Pfizer's biopharmaceuticals group, developing the vaccine is just the start. Now enough people need to get vaccinated to achieve the herd immunity necessary to stop the virus in its tracks.
To build sufficient trust in the drug to achieve that goal, she said, everyone needs to be on board. It'll take not only the private and public sectors working together but all of society committed to making everyone understand that vaccines work, and that you must get inoculated at a moment of extreme resistance in some countries.
Also, mass vaccination means it must happen across the developing world at the same level as in developing countries. The world is just too interconnected to leave anyone behind, noted Gargee Ghosh, president for global advocacy and programs at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Even where many people are suspicious of vaccines, she added, ultimately the clear benefits of restarting economies will hopefully convince those who fear rolling up their arms.
Vaccinations likely won't be a problem in Japan, where Yasutoshi Nishimura, minister, in charge of economic revitalization, underscored how the majority of the population has heeded their advice to practice social distance, wear masks, stay at home and shut down businesses despite no mandatory orders to do so.
Watch the above video to learn more insights from our panelists.
Trump's choices depend on money & leverage; COVID vaccine news is a big deal
Ian Bremmer shares his perspective on global politics on this week's World In (More Than) 60 Seconds:
Number one, Trump will not concede the election. What happens now?
Well, it's very different from impeachment. When impeachment happened, all the Republicans opposed it. Mitt Romney get one conviction, but otherwise, it was party line. And the social media, Fox news, OANN, all these guys, everyone said "innocent." This is a different story. Here's one where Trump isn't conceding, but actually, the Republicans are all over the map. We've got several Republican senators already that have called to congratulate Biden on his win. I know four have done so as of this morning.
We see that a lot of Trump's supporters are saying, "We definitely should go through all of every legal means to contest, but ultimately, if they fail, and by the way, they're going to fail, then that means that Biden will be the victor." And I've even seen Lindsey Graham say that. Ted Cruz almost said that. And then, you have some hardcore GOP and Trump supporters that are saying, "No, this was stolen." And so far, Trump has been saying that publicly. I saw Secretary of State Pompeo just came out with a statement, and it was, "There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration."
Now, what's Pompeo doing? Is this a coup? No, no. Pompeo understands that Trump is still going to be powerful. And you've got other people that want to run for president in 2024 that are being much more cautious, aren't supporting Trump as much like Nikki Haley, for example. And then, you've got Pompeo who's Secretary of State, and he's saying, "I'm right there with you, Mr. Trump." And so, when Mr. Trump becomes a king-maker for the party in 2024, who do you think he's going to be closer to? It's a very cynical move, but if you're Mike Pompeo, it's the move you've got. That's what you're doing. That does not mean that you actually have a whole phalanx of the Republican party that's planning to burn it all in flames.
Now, the real question is, what's Trump going to do? Will Trump ultimately offer a week late concession and won't show up at the inauguration of Biden, but nonetheless will do it? Or does he try to just burn as much down as he can personally? I don't know the answer to that. Some of this is about the money. Like, how much money does he owe? And doesn't he need to try to raise as much money possible to actually get out of that financial jeopardy? Some of it is how much leverage he does or does not think he can have with those that could push for a pardon both before the transition, as well as, potentially, after with Biden for the good of the country. Right? There are a lot of reasons why Trump would or would not want to offer some kind of concession. I understand that from a personal and narcissistic perspective, you'd say, "Well, he'd never admit that he lost anything," but he's made admissions before.
NATO, he said it was obsolete. Then, he said, "I was wrong." And he moved on. His ego allows him to be right about everything even when he admits he's wrong about something. That's one of the helpful things from the Trump mental and emotional perspective. Even on Obama birtherism, he gave that big press conference at the Trump International Hotel. The big reveal was an infomercial, but he gave one sentence saying, "Oh, and by the way, Obama was really born in the US." He didn't say he was wrong, just, "Well, the facts came out." He could do that with the presidency if he wants to. He'll still drive the libs nuts, right? That's not an issue for Trump. They all still hate him. He's still going to have that fight. It's not like he's going to give up on anything. So, I think that would be interesting if that's the way it goes.
With Pfizer and BioNTech announcing a 90% effective COVID vaccine, what happens next?
Well, look, first of all, it's a press release. I'd be more comfortable if we had the data as well. So, let's be clear that we've had other press releases too, still a lot to understand. But certainly, at this stage in the game, 90% effectiveness is vastly better than any epidemiologist I've been talking to at this... Looking at the vaccines going forward. So, if that's what we have, and by spring, summer, we end up with a significant piece of the American population taking this, and by the way, 90% effectiveness, a lot more people are going to be comfortable taking it than at 40% or 50%. I think that's a seriously big deal.
Now, again, it's two shots. So, it is, you got a booster. So, that means double the amount of time to produce, double the amount of time distribution. It's challenging. You need infrastructure around that, and I'm not sure that Trump's going to do a lot to help before inauguration of Biden on January 20th, but this is a big deal. This is going to improve GDP. It's going to improve the ability of people to get back to work, prove the ability people to socialize, stop the quarantines, all of that.
And that, plus the fact that mortality rates are going down means that the balance between listening to the scientist and listening to the economist is shifting towards the economist, and that's important. Like, I wouldn't feel pretty bad if Biden only listens to the scientists and the COVID task force and doesn't recognize that mortality is coming down. We've got better treatment. We're going to continue to have that. And we also have vaccines coming. You still want to wear masks, but you definitely want to be opening the economy more. I don't think this reflects needing to lock down economies. And that's a really, really good thing.
Will the peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan last?
Yeah. Yeah, I think it will because the Armenians have gotten pasted. They have really very little support internationally. Militarily, the Azeris supported by the Turks are a lot stronger, and the Armenians lost some territory in this contested mountain, this Nagorno-Karabakh. They were, potentially, going to lose the capital, so they gave up the territory that the Azeris occupied. They gave up the territory around Nagorno-Karabakh that had been occupied by the Armenians as a buffer zone. This makes the democratic elected government in Armenia a lot weaker. It's potential that they could be overthrown. There's going to be a lot of anger when you lose a war. There's a lot of anger, but in terms of, is there going to be a ceasefire or not? Yeah.
When one side wins, there's not much that the Armenians can do right now. And this is what happens in a GZERO world where you've got a political vacuum, you've got a military vacuum, the aggressor gets to do a lot. And the Turks and the Azeris decided that the status quo, which had worked very well for decades for an Armenia that had a lot of political friends, but not many military advantages, they don't like that status quo. So, holding onto the status quo was not a viable strategy. And again, they just got pasted.
Fighting COVID in the Amazon
In a small village in the Brazilian state of Amazonas, an indigenous nurse is doing whatever she can to protect her own community from the ravages of COVID-19. But in a place where water is in short supply, the struggle to enact proper sanitation is very real. But so, too, is her determination to succeed.
Watch the episode: Dr. Ashish Jha on COVID-19 and the dark winter to come
Quick Take: Coronavirus is still here & the numbers are getting worse
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here and welcome to your week. I hope everyone's having a decent Monday. So much talk about. I want to really focus on coronavirus. Still have to think that is the story in the United States and globally. Everything else is second, third place. A very critical driver of the US election, of course, as it should be. The most important crisis of our lifetimes, irrespective of where you place responsibility, accountability, blame. Your view of that has to be a significant driver of how you think about voting.
The numbers are getting worse. Both in the United States, in Canada, in Europe, and in global developing markets, we are seeing larger numbers of coronavirus cases. In part, that is increased testing though, in many states in the US, we still have positive rates well over 10% of testing, which means we're not testing as much as we need to. That is true in the United Kingdom, that is true in other countries as well. I would argue that the numbers that we're seeing are still so much lower than what the reality is in terms of total cases that we've had. The World Health Organization believes at this point that we probably have about 10% of humanity that has gotten coronavirus. In other words, something like 800 million people, about 20 times the total numbers of cases that we are aware of.
Now that's both good news and bad news. I mean, the good news is that we know what mortality is. We know how many people pretty much have died of the virus. We don't know how many people have the virus. And if the doctors are generally right, that there's vastly more cases, and this is pretty much consensus at this point, that means that mortality from coronavirus is a lot lower than is generally being reported. And indeed, mortality levels continue to go down. And they're going down because we're learning more about the disease. We have better treatment. Now we understand how to fight the disease more effectively. We understand how to quarantine more effectively, how to target super spreader events, as opposed to trying to get every asymptomatic case, especially if you have limited amounts of testing.
All of these things are moving more positively, particularly on the treatment front. The epidemiological community believes that by the end of this year, mortality rates for those that have access to these new treatments, the antibody treatments and others, are going to go down significantly. The one that President Trump received, experimental, you have to get IV in a hospital. New antibody treatments coming online you'll be able to take in the home. And that's going to make it faster, easier. Distribution is obviously going to be easier too. And it means you won't get as many hospitalizations. That's also very helpful in terms of containing spread, very helpful in terms of keeping mortality rates down.
So, I mean, when I see the media increasingly mainly talking about case levels, not exclusively, but mostly talking about case levels going up and not talking about mortality rates going down, one is it gets politicized in terms of it's getting worse, it's getting worse. But two, it's not giving you a good sense that lockdowns are becoming less important. In other words, if mortality rate is going down, the comparative utility right of lockdown is also going down. The cost is becoming greater. The more we learn about this disease and the better we are at being able to fight it, the less you're going to need broad scale lockdowns. The more you can focus on really narrow interventions in those places where you see outbreaks as they occur.
By far, the most important thing everyone should be focused on and shouldn't be politicizing are the broad behavioral issues like wearing a mask, like social distancing and avoiding large crowds, especially indoors. That's something that everyone is capable of actually doing. And the fact that that's been politicized, the fact that we still have to say that because many are opposing it, particularly on social media, amplified by bots and trolls and people that are trying to sow further chaos among populations in the developed world in particular, is a big part of the problem. The fact that people willing to take vaccines, those numbers are going down in the middle of a pandemic because vaccinations and the success of vaccinations are becoming politicized. Those are all significant problems.
As to President Trump himself, clearly good news that not only President Trump, but also everyone that we see that has gotten the coronavirus in the White House from this super spreader event around the Amy Coney Barrett party at the Rose Garden, ceremony at the Rose Garden, seems to be getting better. President Trump seems to be no longer shedding virus, no longer contagious at this point. That's obviously a pretty quick recovery given his age and the severity of what he experienced. Also, former governor Chris Christie, out of the hospital. Nobody else seems to be at the ICU at this point. That's all generally good news.
The question is what are the knock-on implications of all of this? I mean, I think that ... And that's where you get bad news. First point is if you are President Trump, it is too late for you to say, "I've had a come to Jesus moment. I mean, this almost killed me. It's serious. If you've got preexisting conditions, please ensure that you're wearing a mask, you're socially distancing, especially if you're in those groups." No, Trump is not going to do that. It's entirely too late for him. It would be the right thing to do for the American people. But it's the wrong thing for him to do if he's trying to maintain as much support as possible, given where he's been over the last couple of years. And the election is making this worse, not better. So, I get that.
But what that means is Trump out there this week with more in-person, large group rallies with no social distancing and comparatively little mask wearing, and that behavior is being modeled and symbolized for people all over the country. And in some cases, all over the world. Makes it harder to fight this than you would otherwise like.
The other point that I think is worth mentioning is that President Trump is 74. He's morbidly obese. He just has gotten through a potentially lethal disease that we don't have a cure for. And he was given three experimental drugs that might or might not have been successful. So certainly, I mean, this has to be one of the most stressful things that Trump has gone through as a human being, given his age and his health makes it even worse. And he's president and he's underwater in the polls and he's in the middle of all these knockdown drag out fights. I mean, just understanding his emotional and mental state is I think hard to do.
But I think back to myself, the one time that I actually had a near death experience, I think it was in 1995. It was in Azerbaijan and I was going out to the refugee camps about an hour, no, it was about three hours, I guess, by drive outside of Baku. And just about an hour out, my driver fell asleep and we hit a truck going almost 60 miles an hour. And I will tell you, we got medivacked out of the country - I was fine, obviously, or not depending on who you are - but I will tell you for a month, two months, I went right back to work and outwardly, I did my best to show I had my shit together. But I mean, for at least a month, maybe two months, I was at various points in the day, I could see that truck just coming right at my face. And that affected my ability to work. That affected my emotional state. That affected my mental state. I mean, it was a solid two months before I got through that.
You have to think that President Trump right now is experiencing the same thing when you talk about just going through coronavirus, the possibility that he might die. And that's before you think about any side effects or impacts on his physical state from going through this steroid regime that usually, with reasonably healthy people, can have significant impacts on your emotional state.
So again, we're heading into this election, just the level of volatility we already see from a particularly unusual president, I just would keep that in mind as we sort of see the behavior and also recognize that it's going to be much more chaotic period, for many reasons, than any of us have seen or experienced before. And one of those pieces of volatility is going to be driven very much by a president that's just gotten through this kind of unique set of events, and he's a human being too, and we have our frailties.
So anyway, just a few things to think about. Hope everyone's doing well and great talk to you all. Feel free to get in touch and I will see you all soon. Bye.