Trump health secretary says Biden’s complaints over vaccine roll-out plan are ‘nonsense’

Alex Azar also confirmed that distribution could begin 24 hours after FDA approval

US Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar has responded to President-elect Joe Biden, after he criticised the Trump administration’s coronavirus vaccine plan.

On Friday, the president-elect told reporters that he was concerned about the Trump administration’s plan to roll-out potential coronavirus vaccines.

“There is no detailed plan that we've seen, anyway, as to how you get the vaccine out of a container into an injection syringe into somebody's arm,” Mr Biden told reporters.

During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Mr Azar responded to Mr Biden’s comments, saying: “With all respect, that's just nonsense.”

Mr Azar then defended the administration’s vaccine roll-out plan and confirmed that distribution could begin 24 hours after treatment is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“We have comprehensive plans from the CDC (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention), working with 64 public health jurisdictions across the country, as our governors have laid out very detailed plans that we've worked with them on.

“We're leveraging our retail pharmacies, our hospitals, our public health departments, our community health centres,” Mr Azar said.

He added: “This is being micromanaged and controlled by the United States military, as well as our incredible private sector.”

The FDA will consider whether to provide an emergency use authorisation to a coronavirus vaccine developed by pharmaceutical company Pfizer on Thursday. The agency will do the same for a vaccine developed by Moderna a week later, according to Politico.

During the first phase of the roll-out, vaccines are expected to be given to healthcare workers and residents of long-term care facilities.

The Trump administration expects to have administered around 40 million coronavirus vaccine doses by the end of 2020.

On Sunday, Dr Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific officer of the administration’s Operation Warp Speed vaccine programme, told CBS’s Face the Nation that he will be meeting Mr Biden this week.

“We really look forward to it, because actually things have been really very appropriately planned,” Dr Slaoui said.

“I think the plans are there, and I feel confident that once we will explain it, everything in detail, I hope the new transition team will understand,” he continued.

“I'm confident that together we will do the best we can to make sure the vaccines are delivered safely and effectively to all Americans,” Dr Slaoui added.

In a separate interview with Axios on Monday, Mr Azar claimed that every American will be able to get a coronavirus vaccine by the second quarter of 2021.

“My expectation is that next year we return to normalcy in our lives thanks to the incredible work of Operation Warp Speed and these vaccines, as well as the therapeutics,” Mr Azar told Axios' Mike Allen.

He also defended the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, claiming: “We've saved hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives.”

Despite Mr Azar’s claims, the US has recorded the highest amount of Covid-19 cases and deaths in the world, and has seen a dramatic rise in positive tests and hospitalisations over the last two months, following the lifting of multiple state’s coronavirus measures.

Due to the uptick in severe coronavirus cases, the The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation forecast on Sunday that 538,893 people will have lost their lives in the US from coronavirus by 1 April 2021.

According to Johns Hopkins University, there are now more than 14.7 million people who have tested positive for the coronavirus in the US. The death toll has reached 282,375.