democracynow--2020-12-17--"No Reason to Let Up" on Masks as U.S. COVID-19 Deaths & Infections Skyrocket During Vaccine Rollout

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
, democracynow.org , The Quarantine Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman , with Nermeen Shaikh .
The United States has once again shattered global records for daily coronavirus cases and deaths , with nearly a quarter-million infections reported on Wednesday alone .
More than 3,600 Americans died of COVID-19 Wednesday , by far the worst one-day death toll for any nation since the start of the pandemic .
This comes as Politico reports former Trump appointee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Department of Health and Human Services to deliberately allow tens of millions of Americans to become infected with coronavirus , promoting a widely discredited approach of herd immunity through natural infection .
In one email to top health officials , Alexander wrote , quote , “ Infants , kids , teens , young people , young adults , middle aged with no conditions etc .
have zero to little risk … so we use them to develop herd … we want them infected , ” Alexander said .
The approach has been condemned @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unethical , with disease experts saying it could result in the deaths of millions of people .
This comes as Trump ’ s ally , the former New Jersey governor , Chris Christie , is urging Americans to wear masks , citing his hospitalization with COVID-19 in October after a superspreader event at the White House .
Christie spoke in a video posted to his Twitter account .
AMY GOODMAN : While he was hospitalized with COVID-19 in New Jersey , the former Governor Chris Christie was treated with a monoclonal antibody therapy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drug that ’ s in extremely short supply .
Christie ’ s VIP treatment came after he reportedly turned down a chance to participate in a clinical trial for a separate antibody drug , produced by Regeneron , because he was unwilling to accept the chance that he could receive a placebo .
To discuss all of this and more , we ’ re joined by Dr. Ashish Jha .
He ’ s dean of the Brown University School of Public Health , former director of Harvard University ’ s Global Health Institute @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Dr. Jha .
All over this country , I mean , all of the corporate media , you see the celebrations of people getting that vaccine in their arm , the idea that the pandemic is over .
But at the same time , in that split screen , the numbers are going up astronomically , not only for this country , the wealthiest country in the world .
We have the worst numbers in the world .
Can you talk about why it does matter that people still wear masks and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long time — the very reason your son says you ’ re boring on television , because you keep saying the same thing ?
DR. ASHISH JHA : Yes .
Good morning , and thank you for having me on .
I am a little boring on television , because I have a certain set of messages , based on public health , of where we are .
But let ’ s talk about where we are as a country .
You know , look , so , first of all , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is worth celebrating .
It ’ s terrific .
But it does come at the same time that we are seeing just astronomical numbers of infections and deaths .
We ’ ve crossed 300,000 deaths .
We are going across 400,000 deaths probably around the time of the inauguration .
And the question is : When does this stop ?
And there are two reasons that have gotten us here , right ?
I mean , first and foremost is , we ’ ve just had a federal government that has given up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pandemic .
We haven ’ t heard from the president about it .
Scott Atlas , who is a very big believer in letting the infection spread widely , was running the show out of the White House until very , very recently .
So we ’ ve had that failure .
And then , the second is the political division that all of this has created , that has undermined mask-wearing .
The idea that wearing a mask is a political statement is absurd .
So , that ’ s where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to do is get through the next few months with basic public health measures , until vaccines become widely available and widely adopted .
Until that time , there is no reason to let up whatsoever .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : And , Dr. Jha , could you explain what we know so far about asymptomatic spread from people who have been vaccinated , and when you expect to hear more ?
There hasn ’ t been very much released , because there isn ’ t enough known , about how much people can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been vaccinated .
DR. ASHISH JHA : Yeah .
So , this is a critical issue , because if people can still spread after vaccination , then we don ’ t get the sort of population immunity benefits of the vaccine .
Until a few days ago , we had really no data whatsoever .
But a few days ago , in the release of data that came from the FDA from the — sorry , from the Moderna vaccine , what we see is , after one dose , spread of asymptomatic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I suspect it ’ s even more after the second dose .
But we don ’ t have that data .
So we ’ re still sorting it out , but I am becoming more optimistic that we are going to see a substantial decline in asymptomatic spread among people who have been vaccinated .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : And , Dr. Jha , as you mentioned , a significant number , the vast majority of Americans , would need to be vaccinated before we reach anything like herd immunity .
But , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problem , though .
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation , which just conducted a poll in late November , early December , the number of Americans who are willing to take the vaccine is higher , but it may still not be sufficient .
And vaccine hesitancy remains highest among Republicans , according to this poll .
Could you talk about your concerns regarding people not taking the vaccine even once it ’ s available to them ?
DR. ASHISH JHA : Yeah , absolutely .
So , vaccines only work , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a large majority of us take the vaccines .
I mean , again , there is some , obviously , individual protection , but it ’ s really about population protection , community protection , that matters most .
It ’ s true about , depending on the survey , between , let ’ s say , 30 and 40 % of Americans remain hesitant .
I think some of that hesitancy I understand completely .
This vaccine has been developed quickly , and Americans have questions about the safety and efficacy of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that will melt away as people see more and more people getting vaccinated , people doing well after the vaccination .
I think some of that will get better .
I think the issue around Republicans is concerning because there has been this campaign of misinformation that has tended to stick more to the right-wing media , from hydroxychloroquine to how masks are dangerous and to how the election was stolen , to now there ’ s a shift towards vaccines somehow being inadequate or dangerous .
It ’ s really troubling .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ been calling on President Trump to get vaccinated on national television .
I think that will help a lot .
But we also need Republican leaders , conservative leaders to speak up and get vaccinated and talk about the fruits of science that really are available to the American people .
I think only through them speaking up will we make progress on this .
And it ’ s absolutely true we need to get to a large majority of Americans getting vaccinated , if our goal is to return to any semblance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doesn ’ t happen , then we will continue to have to have measures that will make life difficult and not where we want to be .
AMY GOODMAN : I mean , what ’ s amazing about Trump is he wanted to call it , you know , “ getting trumped ” or the “ Trump vaccine , ” very proud of Operation Warp Speed and how fast this happened , and yet he is the one pushing the idea that it ’ s a COVID conspiracy , and so clearly he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be solving what problem ?
Calling it a hoax .
But I want to ask you about , last month , Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Dr. Ben Carson saying he had been desperately ill with COVID-19 but was recovering .
Carson said his condition improved at Walter Reed Medical Center after President Trump intervened on his behalf .
Carson wrote on Facebook , “ President Trump was following my condition and cleared me for the monoclonal antibody therapy that he had previously received , which I am convinced saved my life.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a handful of people able to access Regeneron ’ s therapeutic before the FDA granted the drug emergency use authorization last month .
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani also received the treatment during his battle with coronavirus this month , leading to concerns that those with connections to the White House are getting access to these special treatments largely unattainable to the rest of the population .
Then you have Chris Christie , who didn ’ t participate in the study because he was concerned that , you know , it was very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ didn ’ t want to end up with the placebo .
Can you talk about these therapeutics and who gets access to them ?
DR. ASHISH JHA : Yeah , absolutely .
And all of those examples you brought up are incredibly frustrating in the following way .
So , I have been watching the data on monoclonal antibodies .
I ’ m pretty optimistic that they will end up being a really important part of how we treat people who do get infected .
What has happened is , these leaders have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gotten infected , and then they get access to these therapies that most Americans don ’ t have .
And part of the reason most Americans don ’ t have them is because we didn ’ t do an Operation Warp Speed for therapeutics the way we should have .
And so , these people get access to a relatively limited supply of therapies .
They get better .
And then they go , basically , make the case that COVID is not a big deal .
And it ’ s incredibly destructive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ basically , it creates this impression that COVID is not a big deal .
Well , it may not be as big of a deal if you had access to world-class therapies , including things that are not accessible to most of us .
And so , I wish that that cycle would stop .
I wish we would have more of these therapies available for everybody .
And I think I wish that these individuals would talk about how they ’ re getting something that most Americans don ’ t have access @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dr. Jha , I wanted to ask you about what the FDA reported yesterday , namely , that the Pfizer vials appear to include as much as — as many as two additional doses per vial .
Could you talk about that and that fact that it could increase the vaccine doses available to Americans by 40 % ?
DR. ASHISH JHA : Yeah .
This is a surprise , and a pleasant one at that .
Each of these vials is supposedly filled with five doses .
And there ’ s a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ little bit extra to deal with things like spillage or , you know , just that the withdrawing of the vaccine may not be perfect by the pharmacism , so that people always fill up a little extra on these things .
And what we ’ re finding is , at least some pharmacists have reported , that up to two extra doses in a five-vial dose — five-dose vial may be available .
I think this is great .
And I think what that — and the FDA has basically said people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use those extra doses to vaccinate extra people .
Obviously , given what limited supply of vaccines we have , given the urgent need to vaccinate as many people as possible , I think this is terrific .
And we just have to pay close attention , but I certainly don ’ t see any downside to doing this .
AMY GOODMAN : I have a very quick double question , and that is the issue of kids and teenagers .
The Moderna vaccine apparently is for people aged 18 and above .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
How are kids , from infants to children to teenagers , tested ?
I mean , how does a parent say , “ I ’ m willing to give up my kid to be tested , ” number one ?
And what do you see happening with these age groups ?
And the other goes to the issue of what happens to the tests that are taking place right now , that are so invaluable ?
When everyone gets injected , you don ’ t actually follow them in a systematic , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , just anecdotal — someone got Bell ’ s palsy , someone else got a rash .
How do these studies continue ?
Because people aren ’ t going to want to risk — like Chris Christie , not want to risk getting a placebo .
DR. ASHISH JHA : Yeah .
So , there are several issues here , so let ’ s talk about kids in general and then talk about kind of follow-up studies that need to happen .
You know , the Pfizer vaccine was tested in 16- and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So , that ’ s why , for instance , the FDA vote that happened by the advisory committee , a few people voted no , because they just said there wasn ’ t enough data on 16- and 17-year-olds .
But most people voted yes for even that age group .
And the Moderna vaccine has not been yet tested in 16- and 17-year-olds .
So , my general take is , certainly when you talk about older teenagers , 16- , 17-year-olds , even 15-year-olds , again , let ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should follow the FDA guidance , but I don ’ t expect big biological differences between older teenagers and young adults .
Where it gets more complicated is in younger children .
And what we need , really , there is just the studies to be done .
Kids are getting enrolled in clinical trials now , because they ’ re so far away from being in the front of the line for getting a vaccine that this is a perfectly reasonable time to be testing this in kids .
There are always @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Obviously , you need parental consent .
You need to have as much kid consent as possible .
These vaccines appear to be very safe overall , so I ’ m not as worried about it .
But I do think , over the next couple of months , we are going to see data coming out about younger children .
And that will be very helpful , and it will guide us in the decision-making .
You know , on the other part of your question , Amy , around the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this idea that : What do we do now that we ’ re starting to vaccinate people ?
We can ’ t follow them in studies .
There is a whole mechanism set up so that if people have adverse events , that they will report it to their doctor , and their doctor will then report it into the FDA , that there are very active surveillance programs that exist for people who are getting vaccinated .
And there are people conducting studies now of tracking people who have been vaccinated to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So , I am hopeful that if there are other events , adverse events , that start happening , that we ’ ll catch them pretty early .
I doubt they will , but we should be absolutely tracking this .
And there ’ s a whole set of stuff happening now to make sure that we don ’ t lose out on all that information about what happens to people after they get vaccinated .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : And , Dr. Jha , you mentioned earlier the importance of the vast majority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to reach anything like herd immunity .
Could you talk about that in the global context ?
We just spoke earlier in the program about a large number of people in the world — in fact , the majority — potentially not getting access to the vaccine ’ til 2024 in developing countries .
DR. ASHISH JHA : Yeah , I guess I am , by the way , more optimistic in terms of timeline than that .
But I do agree that we are going to see , in much of 2021 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people have been vaccinated and a set of countries where most people have not been vaccinated .
And that , I think , is a real problem .
It ’ s certainly an ethical and moral problem .
It is also an epidemiological and infectious disease problem , because what we know from this pandemic and every other disease outbreak is that diseases don ’ t respect borders .
So I am very worried about that .
I think we need global leadership here .
This is a place where the Trump administration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the previous guest discussed COVAX .
I think mechanisms like that .
I think China and India , as two major producers of vaccines , being able to get billions of doses out .
I remain optimistic that much of the world will get vaccinated by sometime in 2022 .
But I realize I may be more on of the optimistic side than the majority of people .
But we ’ ve got to make the investments to do it .
And I think we can .
One of the key things is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine , because that ’ s the one that has the best possibility for vaccinating billions of people .
We haven ’ t seen the data yet on that , not fully .
I hope it ends up being really good data and one that we can use to vaccinate a large chunk of the world .
AMY GOODMAN : Dr. Ashish Jha , we want to thank you for being with us , dean of the Brown University School of Public Health , previously director of Harvard University ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ll have you back on to talk about so many other issues .
This is such a critical time right now .
This is Democracy Now !
When we come back , we ’ re going to look at the stimulus package .
Where is it ?
Stay with us .
AMY GOODMAN : “ Don ’ t Worry ” by Love as Laughter , fronted by the widely loved indie musician Sam Jayne , who has been reported missing , prompting a wide search .
His former bandmate confirmed Tuesday that Sam @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 46 .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
The United States has once again shattered global records for daily coronavirus cases and deaths, with nearly a quarter-million infections reported on Wednesday alone. More than 3,600 Americans died of COVID-19 Wednesday, by far the worst one-day death toll for any nation since the start of the pandemic.
This comes as Politico reports former Trump appointee Paul Alexander repeatedly urged officials at the Department of Health and Human Services to deliberately allow tens of millions of Americans to become infected with coronavirus, promoting a widely discredited approach of herd immunity through natural infection.
In one email to top health officials, Alexander wrote, quote, “Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk … so we use them to develop herd … we want them infected,” Alexander said.
The approach has been condemned by the World Health Organization as highly unethical, with disease experts saying it could result in the deaths of millions of people.
This comes as Trump’s ally, the former New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, is urging Americans to wear masks, citing his hospitalization with COVID-19 in October after a superspreader event at the White House. Christie spoke in a video posted to his Twitter account.
CHRIS CHRISTIE: You know, lying in isolation in ICU for seven days, I thought about how wrong I was to remove my mask at the White House. Today, I think about how wrong it is to let mask-wearing divide us, especially as we now know you’re twice as likely to get COVID-19 if you don’t wear a mask, because if you don’t do the right thing, we could all end up on the wrong side of history.
AMY GOODMAN: While he was hospitalized with COVID-19 in New Jersey, the former Governor Chris Christie was treated with a monoclonal antibody therapy produced by Eli Lilly, a promising drug that’s in extremely short supply. Christie’s VIP treatment came after he reportedly turned down a chance to participate in a clinical trial for a separate antibody drug, produced by Regeneron, because he was unwilling to accept the chance that he could receive a placebo.
To discuss all of this and more, we’re joined by Dr. Ashish Jha. He’s dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, former director of Harvard University’s Global Health Institute.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Dr. Jha. All over this country, I mean, all of the corporate media, you see the celebrations of people getting that vaccine in their arm, the idea that the pandemic is over. But at the same time, in that split screen, the numbers are going up astronomically, not only for this country, the wealthiest country in the world. We have the worst numbers in the world. Can you talk about why it does matter that people still wear masks and will probably have to for a very long time — the very reason your son says you’re boring on television, because you keep saying the same thing?
DR. ASHISH JHA: Yes. Good morning, and thank you for having me on. I am a little boring on television, because I have a certain set of messages, based on public health, of where we are. But let’s talk about where we are as a country.
You know, look, so, first of all, the vaccine news is very exciting. It is worth celebrating. It’s terrific. But it does come at the same time that we are seeing just astronomical numbers of infections and deaths. We’ve crossed 300,000 deaths. We are going across 400,000 deaths probably around the time of the inauguration. And the question is: When does this stop?
And there are two reasons that have gotten us here, right? I mean, first and foremost is, we’ve just had a federal government that has given up on any efforts to try to control the pandemic. We haven’t heard from the president about it. Scott Atlas, who is a very big believer in letting the infection spread widely, was running the show out of the White House until very, very recently. So we’ve had that failure.
And then, the second is the political division that all of this has created, that has undermined mask-wearing. The idea that wearing a mask is a political statement is absurd.
So, that’s where we are. And what we have to do is get through the next few months with basic public health measures, until vaccines become widely available and widely adopted. Until that time, there is no reason to let up whatsoever.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr. Jha, could you explain what we know so far about asymptomatic spread from people who have been vaccinated, and when you expect to hear more? There hasn’t been very much released, because there isn’t enough known, about how much people can spread the virus even if they have been vaccinated.
DR. ASHISH JHA: Yeah. So, this is a critical issue, because if people can still spread after vaccination, then we don’t get the sort of population immunity benefits of the vaccine. Until a few days ago, we had really no data whatsoever. But a few days ago, in the release of data that came from the FDA from the — sorry, from the Moderna vaccine, what we see is, after one dose, spread of asymptomatic virus sort of drops by about two-thirds. I suspect it’s even more after the second dose. But we don’t have that data. So we’re still sorting it out, but I am becoming more optimistic that we are going to see a substantial decline in asymptomatic spread among people who have been vaccinated.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr. Jha, as you mentioned, a significant number, the vast majority of Americans, would need to be vaccinated before we reach anything like herd immunity. But, of course, vaccine hesitancy remains a problem, though. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which just conducted a poll in late November, early December, the number of Americans who are willing to take the vaccine is higher, but it may still not be sufficient. And vaccine hesitancy remains highest among Republicans, according to this poll. Could you talk about your concerns regarding people not taking the vaccine even once it’s available to them?
DR. ASHISH JHA: Yeah, absolutely. So, vaccines only work, and their main benefits come, when a large majority of us take the vaccines. I mean, again, there is some, obviously, individual protection, but it’s really about population protection, community protection, that matters most.
It’s true about, depending on the survey, between, let’s say, 30 and 40% of Americans remain hesitant. I think some of that hesitancy I understand completely. This vaccine has been developed quickly, and Americans have questions about the safety and efficacy of these vaccines. I think some of that will melt away as people see more and more people getting vaccinated, people doing well after the vaccination. I think some of that will get better.
I think the issue around Republicans is concerning because there has been this campaign of misinformation that has tended to stick more to the right-wing media, from hydroxychloroquine to how masks are dangerous and to how the election was stolen, to now there’s a shift towards vaccines somehow being inadequate or dangerous. It’s really troubling. And this is why I’ve been calling on President Trump to get vaccinated on national television. I think that will help a lot. But we also need Republican leaders, conservative leaders to speak up and get vaccinated and talk about the fruits of science that really are available to the American people. I think only through them speaking up will we make progress on this.
And it’s absolutely true we need to get to a large majority of Americans getting vaccinated, if our goal is to return to any semblance of a new normal. If that doesn’t happen, then we will continue to have to have measures that will make life difficult and not where we want to be.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, what’s amazing about Trump is he wanted to call it, you know, “getting trumped” or the “Trump vaccine,” very proud of Operation Warp Speed and how fast this happened, and yet he is the one pushing the idea that it’s a COVID conspiracy, and so clearly he is conflicted. The Trump vaccine would be solving what problem? Calling it a hoax.
But I want to ask you about, last month, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Dr. Ben Carson saying he had been desperately ill with COVID-19 but was recovering. Carson said his condition improved at Walter Reed Medical Center after President Trump intervened on his behalf. Carson wrote on Facebook, “President Trump was following my condition and cleared me for the monoclonal antibody therapy that he had previously received, which I am convinced saved my life.”
Now, Carson is just one of a handful of people able to access Regeneron’s therapeutic before the FDA granted the drug emergency use authorization last month. Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani also received the treatment during his battle with coronavirus this month, leading to concerns that those with connections to the White House are getting access to these special treatments largely unattainable to the rest of the population. Then you have Chris Christie, who didn’t participate in the study because he was concerned that, you know, it was very effective, the treatment, and he didn’t want to end up with the placebo. Can you talk about these therapeutics and who gets access to them?
DR. ASHISH JHA: Yeah, absolutely. And all of those examples you brought up are incredibly frustrating in the following way. So, I have been watching the data on monoclonal antibodies. I’m pretty optimistic that they will end up being a really important part of how we treat people who do get infected. What has happened is, these leaders have not followed public health measures, have gotten infected, and then they get access to these therapies that most Americans don’t have. And part of the reason most Americans don’t have them is because we didn’t do an Operation Warp Speed for therapeutics the way we should have.
And so, these people get access to a relatively limited supply of therapies. They get better. And then they go, basically, make the case that COVID is not a big deal. And it’s incredibly destructive, in some ways, because, basically, it creates this impression that COVID is not a big deal. Well, it may not be as big of a deal if you had access to world-class therapies, including things that are not accessible to most of us.
And so, I wish that that cycle would stop. I wish we would have more of these therapies available for everybody. And I think I wish that these individuals would talk about how they’re getting something that most Americans don’t have access to.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr. Jha, I wanted to ask you about what the FDA reported yesterday, namely, that the Pfizer vials appear to include as much as — as many as two additional doses per vial. Could you talk about that and that fact that it could increase the vaccine doses available to Americans by 40%?
DR. ASHISH JHA: Yeah. This is a surprise, and a pleasant one at that. Each of these vials is supposedly filled with five doses. And there’s a pretty long history of filling vials a little bit extra to deal with things like spillage or, you know, just that the withdrawing of the vaccine may not be perfect by the pharmacism, so that people always fill up a little extra on these things. And what we’re finding is, at least some pharmacists have reported, that up to two extra doses in a five-vial dose — five-dose vial may be available.
I think this is great. And I think what that — and the FDA has basically said people should — pharmacists should feel encouraged to use those extra doses to vaccinate extra people. Obviously, given what limited supply of vaccines we have, given the urgent need to vaccinate as many people as possible, I think this is terrific. And we just have to pay close attention, but I certainly don’t see any downside to doing this.
AMY GOODMAN: I have a very quick double question, and that is the issue of kids and teenagers. The Moderna vaccine apparently is for people aged 18 and above. The Pfizer is age 16 and above. How are kids, from infants to children to teenagers, tested? I mean, how does a parent say, “I’m willing to give up my kid to be tested,” number one? And what do you see happening with these age groups?
And the other goes to the issue of what happens to the tests that are taking place right now, that are so invaluable? When everyone gets injected, you don’t actually follow them in a systematic, scientific way where you can get information, just anecdotal — someone got Bell’s palsy, someone else got a rash. How do these studies continue? Because people aren’t going to want to risk — like Chris Christie, not want to risk getting a placebo.
DR. ASHISH JHA: Yeah. So, there are several issues here, so let’s talk about kids in general and then talk about kind of follow-up studies that need to happen.
You know, the Pfizer vaccine was tested in 16- and 17-year-olds, not in large numbers. So, that’s why, for instance, the FDA vote that happened by the advisory committee, a few people voted no, because they just said there wasn’t enough data on 16- and 17-year-olds. But most people voted yes for even that age group. And the Moderna vaccine has not been yet tested in 16- and 17-year-olds. So, my general take is, certainly when you talk about older teenagers, 16-, 17-year-olds, even 15-year-olds, again, let’s wait for the data, and we should follow the FDA guidance, but I don’t expect big biological differences between older teenagers and young adults.
Where it gets more complicated is in younger children. And what we need, really, there is just the studies to be done. Kids are getting enrolled in clinical trials now, because they’re so far away from being in the front of the line for getting a vaccine that this is a perfectly reasonable time to be testing this in kids. There are always ethical issues of testing things in children. Obviously, you need parental consent. You need to have as much kid consent as possible. These vaccines appear to be very safe overall, so I’m not as worried about it. But I do think, over the next couple of months, we are going to see data coming out about younger children. And that will be very helpful, and it will guide us in the decision-making.
You know, on the other part of your question, Amy, around the issue of kind of post-market surveillance, this idea that: What do we do now that we’re starting to vaccinate people? We can’t follow them in studies. There is a whole mechanism set up so that if people have adverse events, that they will report it to their doctor, and their doctor will then report it into the FDA, that there are very active surveillance programs that exist for people who are getting vaccinated. And there are people conducting studies now of tracking people who have been vaccinated to see how they’re doing. So, I am hopeful that if there are other events, adverse events, that start happening, that we’ll catch them pretty early. I doubt they will, but we should be absolutely tracking this. And there’s a whole set of stuff happening now to make sure that we don’t lose out on all that information about what happens to people after they get vaccinated.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr. Jha, you mentioned earlier the importance of the vast majority of Americans getting the vaccine in order to reach anything like herd immunity. Could you talk about that in the global context? We just spoke earlier in the program about a large number of people in the world — in fact, the majority — potentially not getting access to the vaccine ’til 2024 in developing countries.
DR. ASHISH JHA: Yeah, I guess I am, by the way, more optimistic in terms of timeline than that. But I do agree that we are going to see, in much of 2021, a set of countries where most people have been vaccinated and a set of countries where most people have not been vaccinated. And that, I think, is a real problem. It’s certainly an ethical and moral problem. It is also an epidemiological and infectious disease problem, because what we know from this pandemic and every other disease outbreak is that diseases don’t respect borders. So I am very worried about that.
I think we need global leadership here. This is a place where the Trump administration has largely been absent. I know the previous guest discussed COVAX. I think mechanisms like that. I think China and India, as two major producers of vaccines, being able to get billions of doses out. I remain optimistic that much of the world will get vaccinated by sometime in 2022. But I realize I may be more on of the optimistic side than the majority of people. But we’ve got to make the investments to do it. And I think we can.
One of the key things is going to be to see what happens with the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, because that’s the one that has the best possibility for vaccinating billions of people. We haven’t seen the data yet on that, not fully. I hope it ends up being really good data and one that we can use to vaccinate a large chunk of the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Ashish Jha, we want to thank you for being with us, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, previously director of Harvard University’s Global Health Institute. We’ll have you back on to talk about so many other issues. This is such a critical time right now.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’re going to look at the stimulus package. Where is it? Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “Don’t Worry” by Love as Laughter, fronted by the widely loved indie musician Sam Jayne, who has been reported missing, prompting a wide search. His former bandmate confirmed Tuesday that Sam Jayne has died at the age of 46.


democracynow--2020-12-17--As Wealthy Countries Hoard Vaccine Supply, Pandemic Could Rage in Poor Countries Until 2024

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : As coronavirus infections and deaths continue to shatter world records in the United States , vaccines are rolling out across the country with healthcare providers first in line , like respiratory therapist Chestina Schubert at UW Health in Madison , Wisconsin .
AMY GOODMAN : Meanwhile , in the U.K. , 84-year-old retired secretary Maureen Hughes received one of the country ’ s first Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines and said she now hopes to be able to see family members at Christmas .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ experts are raising concerns that wealthy countries have reserved enough vaccine doses to immunize their populations multiple times over , while poorer countries may only have enough to vaccinate just about 20 % of their populations .
On Wednesday , Reuters reported the World Health Organization ’ s global plan for delivering COVID-19 vaccines to 91 poor and middle-income countries — mostly in Africa , Asia and Latin America — faces a , quote , “ very high ” risk of failure and could leave billions of people with no access to vaccines @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more , we begin today ’ s show with Dr. Krishna Udayakumar , founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center and principal researcher for their project that ’ s tracking COVID-19 vaccine purchases around the world .
He ’ s also a practicing physician at Duke University .
Their latest “ report ” : shows the total worldwide confirmed purchases of COVID-19 vaccines have reached at least 7.25 billion doses , with 3.9 billion of those doses — more than half — in high-income countries , although these countries comprise just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ population .
Dr. Udayakumar , welcome to Democracy Now !
It ’ s great to have you with us .
Why don ’ t you start off by explaining this disparity ?
And what does it mean that countries hoard vaccines , that they haven ’ t even gotten yet , to the tune of three times , four times , six times their actual population ?
DR. KRISHNA UDAYAKUMAR : Sure .
Good to be with you today , and thank you for taking on this important topic .
What we started @ @ @ @ @ @ @ countries are trying to do what ’ s best for their own populations and at the same time trying to be good citizens of the world .
And very quickly , as we saw the pandemic worsen in the spring , we had the development of the COVAX platform , which really brought together the World Health Organization ; Gavi , the Vaccine Alliance ; and CEPI , the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation , each with areas of expertise , aimed at — together , they created a mechanism where the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to buy and equitably distribute vaccines around the world .
There are now almost 190 countries and participants that have signed on to that model .
And yet , what we see is that something like 90 % of all the vaccine doses that have been purchased have actually been done directly by countries , mostly middle-income and high-income countries , as opposed to low-income countries .
And so , while , on the one hand , we want to come together into this multilateral platform , what we are seeing is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , where people are trying to also ensure that they are hedging their bets to make this work .
What that means in high-income countries is — I don ’ t think anybody is interested in trying to hoard vaccines beyond what they need , but much of these purchases were made before we had any idea which of these vaccines might work .
So , countries like the U.S. , Canada , regions like the EU went out and made a portfolio of bets to buy advance purchases of multiple types of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more would actually make it through the very rigorous science to be available .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : And , Dr. Udayakumar , could you talk about what has been said by these rich countries about what they ’ ll do with all these excess vaccines , vaccine doses ?
And what countries in the world are being left behind ?
In other words , what countries are entirely relying on the COVAX facility to get any vaccine ?
DR. KRISHNA UDAYAKUMAR : Yeah .
We are starting to see positive language from many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Canada and the EU , for example , have come out and made clear that if and when they have excess doses available , they envision making those available for low-income countries .
What is less clear is whether those are actually going to go through the COVAX mechanism .
Or , in the case of Europe , it seems like they may bypass COVAX and make those donations directly to low-income countries .
Now , if the current trend line plays out , what we ’ re going to see is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be left behind and wait a number of years — two , three , four years — before those populations are really vaccinated at any significant level to achieve herd immunity .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : Dr. Udayakumar , the other vaccines that have not yet been approved from outside the Euro-American world include vaccines , four vaccines , from China that are in late-stage clinical trials , one of which has been approved and is in use in the UAE and Bahrain , as well as the Russia vaccine .
Have you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vaccines ?
DR. KRISHNA UDAYAKUMAR : We have , to the extent they ’ re publicly available in terms of the information .
We do know that there are several countries that have made purchases of various Chinese vaccines .
There are several under development .
We do know that they have already been used extensively in China .
There are public reports that more than a million people in China have been vaccinated with one of the domestically manufactured vaccines , but we don ’ t have clarity as to which ones @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t have clarity on are the real data and evidence behind the particular vaccines from China and from Russia .
What we ’ ve seen from the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine , for example , and today at the FDA advisory committee we ’ ll see from the Moderna vaccine , is a very transparent and rigorous process to review and look at all of the primary data to ensure safety and efficacy .
Our hope is that we will set very high regulatory standards for all vaccines that come through , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the coming weeks and months .
And in addition to the vaccines being developed in China and Russia , we know that there are others in the late stage of pipeline development that are also very promising .
One developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca , for example , is in late-stage testing and , when it becomes available , can be scaled up pretty rapidly .
And so , we ’ re hopeful that that ’ s the type of vaccine that doesn ’ t require ultra-cold-chain transportation , for example @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it much easier to actually distribute and vaccinate in low-resource settings .
AMY GOODMAN : Doctor , could you explain the whole philosophy behind the COVAX facility , what that means , and also talk about the People ’ s Vaccine Alliance , that is challenging trade secrets and patents in this time of pandemic , in this time where so many people are dying around the world ?
DR. KRISHNA UDAYAKUMAR : Sure .
I think both great questions .
First , I think COVAX really serves a purpose in developing a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we need .
We have to recognize that this pandemic is global .
The coronavirus doesn ’ t recognize borders .
And we can ’ t really function as an economy with closed borders for an extended period of time .
So , there is a very strong health and economic argument , in addition to the ethical and humanitarian argument , that high-income countries are better off if we can equitably distribute vaccines around the world .
For that purpose , COVAX really brings together complementary capabilities , strong global participation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ you noted earlier in the show , that it ’ s at very high risk of failing , from their own internal reports .
It needs to be financed much more aggressively .
It needs a very strong ability to purchase and distribute vaccines in the market .
In the midst of not having that in the short term , what we are seeing are mechanisms around , including through some development banks .
So , the World Bank , outside of COVAX , has already pledged $ 12 billion .
What we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ few days is that the Asian Development Bank has put another $ 9 billion on the table , and the Inter-American Development Bank has put a billion dollars .
So , it ’ s great to see those funds becoming available , largely directly to countries , so that they can not only purchase — but we have to recognize , just getting the vaccines is the first step .
You have to have the distribution and supply chain .
You have to have the health workforce .
You have to have all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to make them available for vaccinations .
And you ’ ve got to have the data and information technology systems to track all this .
So , actually getting from vaccine in a vial to a jab in an arm is a hugely complex and expensive task , especially in low-resource settings .
So that ’ s what we also need funding for .
Now , to the second question about intellectual property , it is a major issue , and we ’ ve seen that be a major issue in prior health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ll preface my comments by saying I am not an expert in IP and have many colleagues who are much more expert at this , but what we ’ ve seen is a strong recognition of the need for appropriate , equitable global distribution .
On the positive side , some of the indications we ’ re seeing , is really a ramping up of manufacturing capacity in low- and middle-income countries .
Part of the reason India is at a place where they have more than a billion doses potentially coming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have the Serum Institute of India , that is a very strong domestic producer but also has become the engine for vaccine manufacturing for the world .
They have licensing agreements with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine , for example .
We ’ ve seen manufacturing become available and ramped up in places like Brazil , in Thailand , in South Africa .
We think that ’ s really important to make sure that when vaccine is manufactured in LMIC contexts , low- and middle-income countries , it becomes much more likely that local and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So that ’ s one trend , without dealing particularly with the IP challenge perhaps , but a mechanism , through licensing or manufacturing capacity , that we are starting to see an uptick in availability over time .
NERMEEN SHAIKH : And , Dr. Udayakumar , right before we conclude , I wanted to ask you about — you mentioned the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine , which is more suitable for developing countries because it ’ s easier to transport , and also that the Serum Institute will be manufacturing it .
Do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more readily available in developing countries also because they ’ ve committed a certain percentage of their vaccines to developing countries , which I don ’ t believe either Moderna and Pfizer have , though perhaps at this point they have ?
DR. KRISHNA UDAYAKUMAR : Yeah , you ’ re exactly right .
So , both India , because of the production at the Serum Institute of India , and COVAX , because of a purchase agreement , will have access to the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine .
And because it ’ s a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on , relative to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines , it also is able to be scaled much more effectively .
The estimates we have is that the manufacturing capacity by the end of 2021 may be as high as 3 billion doses of that particular vaccine .
We are seeing that 2.6 billion doses have already been purchased around the world , including by COVAX , including directly by some middle-income countries like India .
So we do see , overall , the fantastic news that we are going to have multiple @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unthinkable a year ago or even six months ago .
So , we should celebrate the feat of science that ’ s gotten us this far , but not lose sight that we have to also think about access and equity to make sure that the science is really paying off for human health .
AMY GOODMAN : And also , who does the science .
You [ sic ] tweeted , “ You know the two awesome vaccines that will tame the pandemic ?
Pfizer ’ s vaccine developed by two Turkish @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by a black woman virologist … Another reason for diversity in STEM … It makes science better.
” Of course , STEM being science , technology , engineering an mathematics .
AMY GOODMAN : Although , actually , that ’ s our next guest ’ s tweet .
But you can comment on it , on what that means .
DR. KRISHNA UDAYAKUMAR : Sure , without a doubt , I think we have to celebrate also the diversity that allows us to bring the best minds and the most diverse perspectives together @ @ @ @ @ @ @ team science .
AMY GOODMAN : Well , I want to thank you so much , Dr. Krishna Udayakumar , founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center , principal researcher for their project tracking COVID-19 vaccine purchases around the world , practicing physician at Duke University .
Next up , we will be joined by the man who tweeted that issue of diversity in STEM , and that ’ s Dr. Ashish Jha , dean of the Brown University School of Public Health .
Stay with us .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: As coronavirus infections and deaths continue to shatter world records in the United States, vaccines are rolling out across the country with healthcare providers first in line, like respiratory therapist Chestina Schubert at UW Health in Madison, Wisconsin.
CHESTINA SCHUBERT: It’s important, because so many people have died from this. And I wanted to have an impact on my community about this and show them that I’m playing my part and getting vaccinated. And I think that I want to inspire people, especially the patients that look like me and I take care of every day, that it’s OK to get vaccinated, it’s safe. And I wanted to put a name and a face, especially here in Madison, Wisconsin, that get vaccinated.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, in the U.K., 84-year-old retired secretary Maureen Hughes received one of the country’s first Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines and said she now hopes to be able to see family members at Christmas.
MAUREEN HUGHES: I can’t thank people enough that have made this vaccine possible. And when you’ve been isolating for four or five months, you know, this is the product at the end, you know, or beginning — could be the beginning. And we’re just really excited.
AMY GOODMAN: This comes as health experts are raising concerns that wealthy countries have reserved enough vaccine doses to immunize their populations multiple times over, while poorer countries may only have enough to vaccinate just about 20% of their populations.
On Wednesday, Reuters reported the World Health Organization’s global plan for delivering COVID-19 vaccines to 91 poor and middle-income countries — mostly in Africa, Asia and Latin America — faces a, quote, “very high” risk of failure and could leave billions of people with no access to vaccines until as late as 2024.
For more, we begin today’s show with Dr. Krishna Udayakumar, founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center and principal researcher for their project that’s tracking COVID-19 vaccine purchases around the world. He’s also a practicing physician at Duke University. Their latest “report”: shows the total worldwide confirmed purchases of COVID-19 vaccines have reached at least 7.25 billion doses, with 3.9 billion of those doses — more than half — in high-income countries, although these countries comprise just 14% of the world’s population.
Dr. Udayakumar, welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us. Why don’t you start off by explaining this disparity? And what does it mean that countries hoard vaccines, that they haven’t even gotten yet, to the tune of three times, four times, six times their actual population?
DR. KRISHNA UDAYAKUMAR: Sure. Good to be with you today, and thank you for taking on this important topic.
What we started to see was a tension, where countries are trying to do what’s best for their own populations and at the same time trying to be good citizens of the world. And very quickly, as we saw the pandemic worsen in the spring, we had the development of the COVAX platform, which really brought together the World Health Organization; Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; and CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, each with areas of expertise, aimed at — together, they created a mechanism where the world could come together, figure out how to buy and equitably distribute vaccines around the world. There are now almost 190 countries and participants that have signed on to that model. And yet, what we see is that something like 90% of all the vaccine doses that have been purchased have actually been done directly by countries, mostly middle-income and high-income countries, as opposed to low-income countries.
And so, while, on the one hand, we want to come together into this multilateral platform, what we are seeing is a lot of side deals, in essence, where people are trying to also ensure that they are hedging their bets to make this work. What that means in high-income countries is — I don’t think anybody is interested in trying to hoard vaccines beyond what they need, but much of these purchases were made before we had any idea which of these vaccines might work. So, countries like the U.S., Canada, regions like the EU went out and made a portfolio of bets to buy advance purchases of multiple types of vaccines, not knowing if one or more would actually make it through the very rigorous science to be available.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr. Udayakumar, could you talk about what has been said by these rich countries about what they’ll do with all these excess vaccines, vaccine doses? And what countries in the world are being left behind? In other words, what countries are entirely relying on the COVAX facility to get any vaccine?
DR. KRISHNA UDAYAKUMAR: Yeah. We are starting to see positive language from many high-income countries in public statements. Both Canada and the EU, for example, have come out and made clear that if and when they have excess doses available, they envision making those available for low-income countries. What is less clear is whether those are actually going to go through the COVAX mechanism. Or, in the case of Europe, it seems like they may bypass COVAX and make those donations directly to low-income countries.
Now, if the current trend line plays out, what we’re going to see is that most populations in low-income countries are going to be left behind and wait a number of years — two, three, four years — before those populations are really vaccinated at any significant level to achieve herd immunity.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr. Udayakumar, the other vaccines that have not yet been approved from outside the Euro-American world include vaccines, four vaccines, from China that are in late-stage clinical trials, one of which has been approved and is in use in the UAE and Bahrain, as well as the Russia vaccine. Have you been tracking countries that have pre-purchased these vaccines?
DR. KRISHNA UDAYAKUMAR: We have, to the extent they’re publicly available in terms of the information. We do know that there are several countries that have made purchases of various Chinese vaccines. There are several under development. We do know that they have already been used extensively in China. There are public reports that more than a million people in China have been vaccinated with one of the domestically manufactured vaccines, but we don’t have clarity as to which ones they may be. What we also don’t have clarity on are the real data and evidence behind the particular vaccines from China and from Russia.
What we’ve seen from the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, for example, and today at the FDA advisory committee we’ll see from the Moderna vaccine, is a very transparent and rigorous process to review and look at all of the primary data to ensure safety and efficacy. Our hope is that we will set very high regulatory standards for all vaccines that come through, and that’s what we envision happening over the coming weeks and months.
And in addition to the vaccines being developed in China and Russia, we know that there are others in the late stage of pipeline development that are also very promising. One developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, for example, is in late-stage testing and, when it becomes available, can be scaled up pretty rapidly. And so, we’re hopeful that that’s the type of vaccine that doesn’t require ultra-cold-chain transportation, for example, and storage, that will make it much easier to actually distribute and vaccinate in low-resource settings.
AMY GOODMAN: Doctor, could you explain the whole philosophy behind the COVAX facility, what that means, and also talk about the People’s Vaccine Alliance, that is challenging trade secrets and patents in this time of pandemic, in this time where so many people are dying around the world?
DR. KRISHNA UDAYAKUMAR: Sure. I think both great questions. First, I think COVAX really serves a purpose in developing a truly multilateral approach, which is what we need. We have to recognize that this pandemic is global. The coronavirus doesn’t recognize borders. And we can’t really function as an economy with closed borders for an extended period of time. So, there is a very strong health and economic argument, in addition to the ethical and humanitarian argument, that high-income countries are better off if we can equitably distribute vaccines around the world. For that purpose, COVAX really brings together complementary capabilities, strong global participation.
And yet it has challenges, as you noted earlier in the show, that it’s at very high risk of failing, from their own internal reports. It needs to be financed much more aggressively. It needs a very strong ability to purchase and distribute vaccines in the market. In the midst of not having that in the short term, what we are seeing are mechanisms around, including through some development banks. So, the World Bank, outside of COVAX, has already pledged $12 billion. What we’ve seen just in the last few days is that the Asian Development Bank has put another $9 billion on the table, and the Inter-American Development Bank has put a billion dollars.
So, it’s great to see those funds becoming available, largely directly to countries, so that they can not only purchase — but we have to recognize, just getting the vaccines is the first step. You have to have the distribution and supply chain. You have to have the health workforce. You have to have all of the supplies that go with vaccines to make them available for vaccinations. And you’ve got to have the data and information technology systems to track all this. So, actually getting from vaccine in a vial to a jab in an arm is a hugely complex and expensive task, especially in low-resource settings. So that’s what we also need funding for.
Now, to the second question about intellectual property, it is a major issue, and we’ve seen that be a major issue in prior health — in epidemics like HIV. I’ll preface my comments by saying I am not an expert in IP and have many colleagues who are much more expert at this, but what we’ve seen is a strong recognition of the need for appropriate, equitable global distribution.
On the positive side, some of the indications we’re seeing, is really a ramping up of manufacturing capacity in low- and middle-income countries. Part of the reason India is at a place where they have more than a billion doses potentially coming to their domestic market is because they have the Serum Institute of India, that is a very strong domestic producer but also has become the engine for vaccine manufacturing for the world. They have licensing agreements with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, for example. We’ve seen manufacturing become available and ramped up in places like Brazil, in Thailand, in South Africa. We think that’s really important to make sure that when vaccine is manufactured in LMIC contexts, low- and middle-income countries, it becomes much more likely that local and regional populations will get access to those. So that’s one trend, without dealing particularly with the IP challenge perhaps, but a mechanism, through licensing or manufacturing capacity, that we are starting to see an uptick in availability over time.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr. Udayakumar, right before we conclude, I wanted to ask you about — you mentioned the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, which is more suitable for developing countries because it’s easier to transport, and also that the Serum Institute will be manufacturing it. Do you expect the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine to be more readily available in developing countries also because they’ve committed a certain percentage of their vaccines to developing countries, which I don’t believe either Moderna and Pfizer have, though perhaps at this point they have?
DR. KRISHNA UDAYAKUMAR: Yeah, you’re exactly right. So, both India, because of the production at the Serum Institute of India, and COVAX, because of a purchase agreement, will have access to the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. And because it’s a different technology that it’s based on, relative to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, it also is able to be scaled much more effectively. The estimates we have is that the manufacturing capacity by the end of 2021 may be as high as 3 billion doses of that particular vaccine. We are seeing that 2.6 billion doses have already been purchased around the world, including by COVAX, including directly by some middle-income countries like India.
So we do see, overall, the fantastic news that we are going to have multiple vaccines available, which would have been unthinkable a year ago or even six months ago. So, we should celebrate the feat of science that’s gotten us this far, but not lose sight that we have to also think about access and equity to make sure that the science is really paying off for human health.
AMY GOODMAN: And also, who does the science. You [sic] tweeted, “You know the two awesome vaccines that will tame the pandemic? Pfizer’s vaccine developed by two Turkish immigrants … Moderna’s vaccine developed by a black woman virologist … Another reason for diversity in STEM … It makes science better.” Of course, STEM being science, technology, engineering an mathematics.
DR. KRISHNA UDAYAKUMAR: Without a doubt.
AMY GOODMAN: Although, actually, that’s our next guest’s tweet. But you can comment on it, on what that means.
DR. KRISHNA UDAYAKUMAR: Sure, without a doubt, I think we have to celebrate also the diversity that allows us to bring the best minds and the most diverse perspectives together that allow us to do the best team science.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you so much, Dr. Krishna Udayakumar, founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center, principal researcher for their project tracking COVID-19 vaccine purchases around the world, practicing physician at Duke University.
Next up, we will be joined by the man who tweeted that issue of diversity in STEM, and that’s Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. Stay with us.


democracynow--2020-12-17--Headlines for December 17, 2020

Headlines for December 17, 2020

In the United States , an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration is scheduled to vote today on @ @ @ @ @ authorization of Moderna ’ s COVID-19 vaccine .
If approved , Moderna expects to ship @ @ @ @ @ million Americans in the coming days .
This comes as the FDA says it will @ @ @ @ @ extra doses of Pfizer ’ s new coronavirus vaccine out of vials , after shipments @ @ @ @ @ were expecting .
The unexpected windfall could boost the number of available doses by up @ @ @ @ @ President Mike Pence and second lady Karen Pence say they will publicly receive a shot @ @ @ @ @ vaccine on Friday .
President-elect Biden says he plans to get a shot , too @ @ @ @ @ week .
The White House said President Trump would not get vaccinated until it ’ @ @ @ @ @ team .

In the United States, an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration is scheduled to vote today on whether to recommend emergency use authorization of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine. If approved, Moderna expects to ship enough doses for about 3 million Americans in the coming days.
This comes as the FDA says it will allow healthcare workers to squeeze extra doses of Pfizer’s new coronavirus vaccine out of vials, after shipments contained more vaccine than pharmacists were expecting. The unexpected windfall could boost the number of available doses by up to 40%.
Vice President Mike Pence and second lady Karen Pence say they will publicly receive a shot of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine on Friday. President-elect Biden says he plans to get a shot, too, as early as next week. The White House said President Trump would not get vaccinated until it’s recommended by his medical team.


democracynow--2020-12-18--CIA-Backed Afghan Death Squads Massacred Children Inside Religious Schools in Campaign of Terror

This is a rush transcript .
Copy may not be in its final form .
AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now !
The Quarantine Report , The War and Peace Report .
I ’ m Amy Goodman .
A shocking exposé out today in The Intercept reveals CIA-backed death squads in Afghanistan have killed children as young as 8 years old in a series of night raids , many targeting madrassas , Islamic religious schools .
In December 2018 , one of the death squads attacked a madrassa in Wardak province , killing 12 boys , the youngest 9 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be from a CIA-trained and -funded paramilitary unit known as 01 .
The United States played key roles in many of the raids , from picking targets to ferrying Afghan forces to the sites , to providing lethal airpower during the raids .
The Intercept reports this was part of a campaign of terror orchestrated by the Trump administration that included massacres , executions , mutilation , forced disappearances , attacks on medical facilities , and airstrikes targeting structures known to house civilians .
The Intercept has documented 10 night raids that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the months leading up to the peace talks with the Taliban .
The campaign of terror appears to have been timed to force the Taliban to the negotiating table .
The 01 death squad all but vanished earlier this year , after the U.S. and Taliban signed the Doha Agreement .
Earlier this week , General Mark Milley , chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , met with Taliban negotiators in Qatar for unannounced talks .
We go now to Kabul , Afghanistan , to speak with the journalist Andrew Quilty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been based in Afghanistan for many years .
His new piece is just out , titled “ The CIA ’ s Afghan Death Squads.
” Andrew , welcome to Democracy Now !
Tell us what you found .
And describe the boy , the young man , 12 years old , Bilal , and the horror he described .
ANDREW QUILTY : Thanks for having me , Amy .
Yeah , you ’ ve given a great synopsis there of what me and The Intercept found in our reporting over several months , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who was one of the survivors and one of the witnesses of the worst raid of the 10 that we documented in great detail , was , as you said , 12 years old .
And he was one of about 25 young Islamic school students who stay overnight in these madrassas because they live too far away to go back and forth each day .
So , on this night — in fact , it was two years to the day that this raid occurred , and he was there with , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
They had eaten a basic meal of beans and bread and gone to sleep , when at about 10:00 or 10:30 at night they started hearing the buzz of drones overhead .
And soon after that , a number of soldiers burst through the door .
They had detonated an explosive device to enter the building .
And soon after that , a couple of soldiers burst into the room where he was staying with about another 10 boys .
And they dragged the two oldest-looking boys out of that room , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with 10 other older-looking students .
But as you already discussed , some of them were as young as 8 or 9 years old .
And minutes after that , he and another boy , who were in the madrassa , described hearing multiple gunshots from what they described as several different weapons .
And what they discovered early the next morning , when people from the village came to their rescue after the raiders had left the site and left the village , was that those 12 boys that had been taken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ massacred in a room .
Bilal and five other witnesses from that night , including another boy who survived the massacre and four other villagers who either saw or heard the events of the night , described hearing or seeing Americans or English speakers amongst those who committed the raid .
AMY GOODMAN : So , talk more about — and , I mean , you ’ ve delved deeply into this massacre and others — the connection between the Afghan forces that are carrying this out , who they are , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s a very shadowy organization and very difficult to find out information .
But from all the reporting I ’ ve done and others have done over the years , we understand that these militias , this network of militias — and there ’ s about six or seven of them throughout the country — were established in the very early days of the Afghan War by CIA officers , many of whom had been brought back into the fold after the invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 , who had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1980s , when the CIA was helping to fund the mujahideen against the Soviet occupation at that time .
So , this network of militias was set up and appear to be entirely under the control of the CIA but made up entirely of Afghan soldiers .
They are better trained , better paid , better armed than their conventional force counterparts in Afghanistan .
And it ’ s actually not often that you hear about them .
Often the only time you do hear about them is when atrocities like those that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last couple of years make headlines .
And in fact , it ’ s very rare that they do make headlines , because the places that these militias tend to operate are deep in Taliban-controlled territory , where often there ’ s very limited access to communications and media .
And often the information that does come out is denigrated as propaganda , which the Taliban are well known for using .
But it ’ s been in more recent years , in fact , since the Trump administration started to undertake peace @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Qatar , that these militias have come back to the fore and been extremely active in certain parts of the country , and in particular in Wardak province , which neighbors Kabul .
You can drive to the capital of Wardak from where I ’ m sitting right now in an hour .
AMY GOODMAN : I want to turn to Mike Pompeo speaking in 2017 .
At the time , he was the head of the CIA , before becoming secretary of state .
AMY GOODMAN : And this is President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ AMY GOODMAN : So , there you have it , Pompeo and Trump in 2017 .
And it makes me think about what you write in your piece : “ The prevalence of boys among those killed in Wardak indicates that 01 ” — that unit that did the massacre — it makes me think that 01 “ was trying to eliminate not only existing enemies , but potential future foes as well.
” Talk more explicitly about what Trump and Pompeo are doing right now , and at this point when Milley @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Qatar .
ANDREW QUILTY : What they ’ re doing right now , well , they ’ re coming to , potentially , the end of their involvement in Afghanistan , something that President Trump had campaigned on back in 2016 .
And from all my reporting , it ’ s my understanding that Trump wanted to get out , as we all know , of Afghanistan , get his forces out of Afghanistan , by the end of his term , in a four-year term .
A four-year term , in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not a lot of time at all .
And as it ’ s often said , it ’ s much easier to get into war than get out of one .
So , the way I see it is that Trump wanted to exert maximum force in a minimum amount of time to coerce the Taliban at the negotiating table and put them in a position where they had to concede to their terms in the negotiating process .
So , while these raids were going on and while the Taliban were being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the negotiating table , yeah , you had this strange contradiction of the rhetoric of peace in Doha , in all the public pronouncements and public rhetoric , contradicted by what was going on on the ground in Afghanistan , which was far from — far from this rhetoric , as I say .
What the peace talks led to in February this year was the signing of what ’ s known as the Doha Agreement , which was a — it wasn ’ t a peace deal , but it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a peace deal down the track .
It mandated the timeline for withdrawal of American forces , and that is coming up to end , in theory , in April or May next year .
Now , since then , since the February signing of the Doha Agreement , it was hoped [ inaudible ] by the American government and the Afghan government that it would coincide with a decrease in violence in the country .
That has not occurred .
So it seems as though Trump ’ s theory that pummeling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And in fact , the Taliban seem to be as strong now as at any other time in the war , this at a time where they can see the end of the road for the American involvement in the country , and certainly an opening , a greater opening than they ’ ve ever witnessed before , to regaining the power that they had in the late ’ 90s and 2001 .
AMY GOODMAN : I just want to express how important it is to be speaking to you in Kabul @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for , what — this one investigation for about 18 months .
Internet access is not easy .
The threat that journalists face , like you , and particularly Afghan journalists ?
One TV broadcaster , she was just gunned down , assassinated with her driver recently .
And also , what questions you want to see answered right now , coming out of this investigation ?
And finally , the kind of pressure the president , Ashraf Ghani , is under for working with the U.S. government , at a time when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 01 , certainly in Afghanistan they know about these shadowy forces , the people themselves , because of the number of raids and massacres , and word gets around ?
ANDREW QUILTY : Look , strangely enough , I think the questions that I want answered would also be the questions that the president of Afghanistan , Ashraf Ghani , and his national security adviser and his Cabinet would want answered .
And that is : Who on Earth controls these units who are operating in their country without their permission ?
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and he was at a loss to explain how these units operated , let alone who controls them .
He did admit that the CIA were in control of them .
But beyond that , there doesn ’ t seem to be [ inaudible ] understanding or correspondence with their Afghan counterparts .
These units , just to go back to a little bit about how they operate and how little oversight there is , they ’ re paid in U.S. dollars in cash , so they ’ re not even — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aware of who is making up the numbers in their units , whereas with their conventional forces , all the units are paid through an electronic system , which is backed up by biometric data , which none of the members of these units have to undertake .
You mentioned the risk to journalists here .
And yeah , it ’ s been something that has come about particularly in recent months .
In Kabul and other provincial capitals , you ’ ve seen — ANDREW QUILTY : — a big increase — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many of which are targeting journalists and human rights activists .
AMY GOODMAN : Well , Andrew Quilty , we want you to stay safe .
Thank you so much .
Australian photojournalist based in Afghanistan .
We ’ ll link to your Intercept exposé at democracynow.org .
I ’ m Amy Goodman .
Wear a mask .
Stay safe .

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! The Quarantine Report, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
A shocking exposé out today in The Intercept reveals CIA-backed death squads in Afghanistan have killed children as young as 8 years old in a series of night raids, many targeting madrassas, Islamic religious schools. In December 2018, one of the death squads attacked a madrassa in Wardak province, killing 12 boys, the youngest 9 years old. The killers are believed to be from a CIA-trained and -funded paramilitary unit known as 01.
The United States played key roles in many of the raids, from picking targets to ferrying Afghan forces to the sites, to providing lethal airpower during the raids. The Intercept reports this was part of a campaign of terror orchestrated by the Trump administration that included massacres, executions, mutilation, forced disappearances, attacks on medical facilities, and airstrikes targeting structures known to house civilians.
The Intercept has documented 10 night raids that resulted in at least 51 civilian deaths in the months leading up to the peace talks with the Taliban. The campaign of terror appears to have been timed to force the Taliban to the negotiating table. The 01 death squad all but vanished earlier this year, after the U.S. and Taliban signed the Doha Agreement. Earlier this week, General Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with Taliban negotiators in Qatar for unannounced talks.
We go now to Kabul, Afghanistan, to speak with the journalist Andrew Quilty, Australian reporter and photojournalist who has been based in Afghanistan for many years. His new piece is just out, titled “The CIA’s Afghan Death Squads.”
Andrew, welcome to Democracy Now! Tell us what you found. And describe the boy, the young man, 12 years old, Bilal, and the horror he described.
ANDREW QUILTY: Thanks for having me, Amy.
Yeah, you’ve given a great synopsis there of what me and The Intercept found in our reporting over several months, this year and last. Bilal, who was one of the survivors and one of the witnesses of the worst raid of the 10 that we documented in great detail, was, as you said, 12 years old. And he was one of about 25 young Islamic school students who stay overnight in these madrassas because they live too far away to go back and forth each day.
So, on this night — in fact, it was two years to the day that this raid occurred, and he was there with, as I said, 25 other students. They had eaten a basic meal of beans and bread and gone to sleep, when at about 10:00 or 10:30 at night they started hearing the buzz of drones overhead. And soon after that, a number of soldiers burst through the door. They had detonated an explosive device to enter the building. And soon after that, a couple of soldiers burst into the room where he was staying with about another 10 boys.
And they dragged the two oldest-looking boys out of that room, took them into another room, along with 10 other older-looking students. But as you already discussed, some of them were as young as 8 or 9 years old. And minutes after that, he and another boy, who were in the madrassa, described hearing multiple gunshots from what they described as several different weapons. And what they discovered early the next morning, when people from the village came to their rescue after the raiders had left the site and left the village, was that those 12 boys that had been taken out of the several dormitories had been massacred in a room.
Bilal and five other witnesses from that night, including another boy who survived the massacre and four other villagers who either saw or heard the events of the night, described hearing or seeing Americans or English speakers amongst those who committed the raid.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk more about — and, I mean, you’ve delved deeply into this massacre and others — the connection between the Afghan forces that are carrying this out, who they are, and their U.S. backers.
ANDREW QUILTY: It’s a very shadowy organization and very difficult to find out information. But from all the reporting I’ve done and others have done over the years, we understand that these militias, this network of militias — and there’s about six or seven of them throughout the country — were established in the very early days of the Afghan War by CIA officers, many of whom had been brought back into the fold after the invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, who had previously been working in Afghanistan during the 1980s, when the CIA was helping to fund the mujahideen against the Soviet occupation at that time. So, this network of militias was set up and appear to be entirely under the control of the CIA but made up entirely of Afghan soldiers. They are better trained, better paid, better armed than their conventional force counterparts in Afghanistan.
And it’s actually not often that you hear about them. Often the only time you do hear about them is when atrocities like those that we have documented in Wardak in the last couple of years make headlines. And in fact, it’s very rare that they do make headlines, because the places that these militias tend to operate are deep in Taliban-controlled territory, where often there’s very limited access to communications and media. And often the information that does come out is denigrated as propaganda, which the Taliban are well known for using.
But it’s been in more recent years, in fact, since the Trump administration started to undertake peace talks with the Taliban regime in Doha, Qatar, that these militias have come back to the fore and been extremely active in certain parts of the country, and in particular in Wardak province, which neighbors Kabul. You can drive to the capital of Wardak from where I’m sitting right now in an hour.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to Mike Pompeo speaking in 2017. At the time, he was the head of the CIA, before becoming secretary of state.
MIKE POMPEO: We can’t perform our mission if we’re not aggressive, vicious, unforgiving, relentless — you pick the word. Every minute, we have to be focused on crushing our enemies.
AMY GOODMAN: And this is President Trump speaking about Afghanistan in 2017.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We are not nation-building again. We are killing terrorists.
AMY GOODMAN: So, there you have it, Pompeo and Trump in 2017. And it makes me think about what you write in your piece: “The prevalence of boys among those killed in Wardak indicates that 01” — that unit that did the massacre — it makes me think that 01 “was trying to eliminate not only existing enemies, but potential future foes as well.” Talk more explicitly about what Trump and Pompeo are doing right now, and at this point when Milley has just met with the Taliban in Qatar.
ANDREW QUILTY: What they’re doing right now, well, they’re coming to, potentially, the end of their involvement in Afghanistan, something that President Trump had campaigned on back in 2016. And from all my reporting, it’s my understanding that Trump wanted to get out, as we all know, of Afghanistan, get his forces out of Afghanistan, by the end of his term, in a four-year term. A four-year term, in the context of a 20-year war, is not a lot of time at all. And as it’s often said, it’s much easier to get into war than get out of one.
So, the way I see it is that Trump wanted to exert maximum force in a minimum amount of time to coerce the Taliban at the negotiating table and put them in a position where they had to concede to their terms in the negotiating process. So, while these raids were going on and while the Taliban were being pummeled all over Afghanistan and being pressured at the negotiating table, yeah, you had this strange contradiction of the rhetoric of peace in Doha, in all the public pronouncements and public rhetoric, contradicted by what was going on on the ground in Afghanistan, which was far from — far from this rhetoric, as I say.
What the peace talks led to in February this year was the signing of what’s known as the Doha Agreement, which was a — it wasn’t a peace deal, but it was an agreement that was hoped would lead to a peace deal down the track. It mandated the timeline for withdrawal of American forces, and that is coming up to end, in theory, in April or May next year.
Now, since then, since the February signing of the Doha Agreement, it was hoped [inaudible] by the American government and the Afghan government that it would coincide with a decrease in violence in the country. That has not occurred. So it seems as though Trump’s theory that pummeling the Taliban into submission has not worked. And in fact, the Taliban seem to be as strong now as at any other time in the war, this at a time where they can see the end of the road for the American involvement in the country, and certainly an opening, a greater opening than they’ve ever witnessed before, to regaining the power that they had in the late ’90s and 2001.
AMY GOODMAN: I just want to express how important it is to be speaking to you in Kabul. You have been doing this work for, what — this one investigation for about 18 months. Internet access is not easy. The threat that journalists face, like you, and particularly Afghan journalists? One TV broadcaster, she was just gunned down, assassinated with her driver recently. And also, what questions you want to see answered right now, coming out of this investigation? And finally, the kind of pressure the president, Ashraf Ghani, is under for working with the U.S. government, at a time when, while we have not heard about 01, certainly in Afghanistan they know about these shadowy forces, the people themselves, because of the number of raids and massacres, and word gets around?
ANDREW QUILTY: Look, strangely enough, I think the questions that I want answered would also be the questions that the president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, and his national security adviser and his Cabinet would want answered. And that is: Who on Earth controls these units who are operating in their country without their permission?
I spoke to the national security adviser here, and he was at a loss to explain how these units operated, let alone who controls them. He did admit that the CIA were in control of them. But beyond that, there doesn’t seem to be [inaudible] understanding or correspondence with their Afghan counterparts.
These units, just to go back to a little bit about how they operate and how little oversight there is, they’re paid in U.S. dollars in cash, so they’re not even — the Afghan government isn’t even aware of who is making up the numbers in their units, whereas with their conventional forces, all the units are paid through an electronic system, which is backed up by biometric data, which none of the members of these units have to undertake.
You mentioned the risk to journalists here. And yeah, it’s been something that has come about particularly in recent months. In Kabul and other provincial capitals, you’ve seen —
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.
ANDREW QUILTY: — a big increase — a big increase in targeted attacks, many of which are targeting journalists and human rights activists.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Andrew Quilty, we want you to stay safe. Thank you so much. Australian photojournalist based in Afghanistan. We’ll link to your Intercept exposé at democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. Wear a mask. Stay safe.