Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Incorporated issued a press release on November 9 stating that Pfizer and the German biotechnology company, BioNTech SE, have developed a vaccine that has been found to be more than 90 percent successful in large-scale trails against the coronavirus.
The timing of the announcement, six days after the presidential election, brings to mind the timing of the release by Iran of 66 American hostages on January 20, 1981, mere minutes after President Ronald Reagan’s inauguration. The release of the hostages was a major issue during the presidential campaign of 1980, just as the coronavirus pandemic was a major issue during this year’s campaign. If Iran had released the hostages before the 1980 election, and if Pfizer had announced the availability of the vaccine before this year’s election, the outcomes of both elections might have been different.
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Following the announcement, veteran journalist Geraldo Rivera tweeted: “If news of #Pfizer miracle vaccine had come just two weeks earlier, the results of the election might have been different. It was the urging & inspiration of @realDonaldTrump that drove the timing of this potentially history making, life-saving result.”
“Why now?” Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tweeted shortly after Pfizer announced news of its COVID vaccine.
While such considerations are speculative, the political reactions to the news of the new vaccine are more concrete.
In an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s Good Morning America on November 9, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he has spoken to other governors about how they can change or possibly block President Trump’s plan to distribute the vaccine so that presidential claimant Joe Biden could do it instead.
“Well, it’s good news, bad news, George,” Cuomo told Stephanopoulos. “The good news is the Pfizer tests look good and we’ll have a vaccine shortly. The bad news is it’s about two months before Joe Biden takes over, and that means [the Trump] administration is going to be implementing a vaccine plan.”
This is the same Cuomo whose administration, according to a New York Post report on July 8, sent more than 6,300 recovering coronavirus patients into nursing homes during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, leading to numerous deaths.
While Cuomo expressed mixed feeling about the impending availability of a vaccine that may save thousands of lives, Trump delivered a very positive reaction, tweeting: “STOCK MARKET UP BIG, VACCINE COMING SOON. REPORT 90% EFFECTIVE. SUCH GREAT NEWS!”
Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) tweeted on November 9: “Great work by the administration pushing the historic and unprecedented vaccine development under Operation Warp Speed, even as cynical Democrats attempted to undermine its credibility. Joe Biden’s only plan for the virus is Trump’s plan. Always has been.”
As beneficial as the vaccine may be in stopping the spread of COVID-19, constitutionalists will be certain to stress that any use of it must be voluntary.
