As states throughout the country continue to struggle with the fallout of a deadly polar vortex, senior Biden health officials are concerned that the days-long emergency will also lead to a spike in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the weeks to come. Over the past several days senior administration officials have scrambled to assemble a federal response to the winter emergency, primarily in Texas, but also in Oklahoma, Louisiana and other northwest and southern states. As part of that response, the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have coordinated sending 60 generators, […]
Erin Banco
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Top members of Biden’s COVID response team are warning internally that the U.S. may not reach herd immunity until Thanksgiving or even the start of winter—months later than originally calculated—according to two senior administration officials. In an interview with CBS News this week, President Joe Biden hinted at some of these concerns, saying it would be “very difficult” to reach herd immunity—a population-wide resistance to the virus—“much before the end of the summer” with the current daily rate of approximately 1.3 million vaccine doses. Other top officials working on the federal government’s COVID-19 response say the are uneasy about vaccine supply […]
The Biden administration and COVID-19 vaccine producers are actively discussing ways to ramp up manufacturing over the next several months, including partnering with additional pharmaceutical firms to help bottle the vaccine for distribution. According to two individuals familiar with those conversations, the Biden team has been in talks with several companies about stepping in to help in the fill and finish —the act of filling vials with vaccine— portion of the vaccine manufacturing process. Several of those companies have emerged as frontrunners and an announcement could be made in the coming days, those sources said. Asked about the manufacturing partnership conversations, […]
The White House COVID-19 task force has asked the Centers for Disease Control to conduct a comprehensive study on how many Americans have died since receiving the vaccine and the circumstances that led to their death, according to two officials familiar with the matter. Officials aren’t concerned that the vaccine is having adverse effects on a large number of recipients. Instead, they are pushing for the study in order to ensure the federal government has a more complete picture of mortality in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal is to gather more data about the vaccine, its efficacy, and […]
As multiple states across the country say they have run out of vaccines to administer and are left waiting on the federal government to get them additional doses, the incoming Biden team is pleading with them to hold out hope just a little longer. In public press conferences Tuesday, officials from multiple states said they could not move more quickly to scale vaccination in their states until they received additional instructions on how to go about procuring the millions of additional doses needed to match the growing demand. Officials in California, New Jersey, Kentucky and New York all told The Daily […]
Senior Pentagon officials denied an early December request to vaccinate the National Guard troops tapped to secure Washington during the inauguration, according to two officials familiar with the matter. Those sources said the request, made by officials in charge of planning the event, was rejected because most of the guardsmen called to help protect the inauguration fell outside of the first tier of the Department of Defense’s population schema for the COVID-19 vaccine. Despite the rebuff, inauguration event planners continued to press the issue, raising fears about the spread of the virus within the Capitol campus and among attendees, particularly if […]
Officials working on the Trump administration’s data collection efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic have suggested to transition officials for President-elect Joe Biden that the new team get rid of a newly minted system originally designed by the Silicon Valley company Palantir, warning that it is not accurate. Palantir, the data-mining firm created by investor Peter Thiel, a close ally of President Donald Trump, is known for its work with global intelligence, military and law enforcement agencies. It secured a contract with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last year to help the federal government develop a better system—HHS Protect— […]
The nation’s top health officials are concerned about the rising number of lawmakers on the Hill who have tested positive for COVID-19 in recent days after a violent mob attacked the Capitol and forced members of Congress to hide out in small, crowded spaces. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute for Infectious Diseases, told The Daily Beast in an interview that the scene at the Capitol last week looked like a “subway car during rush hour.” There were reports of as many as 150 members locked in one room during the chaos. “Of course, when you have people […]
Members of the House Judiciary Committee have announced articles of impeachment for President Donald Trump, alleging he will “remain a threat to national security, democracy and the Constitution” if he is allowed to remain in office for two more weeks. The removal threat came after Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the minority leader, said in a statement that the president should be “immediately” removed from office, either by the 25th Amendment or articles of impeachment. Reps. David Cicilline (D-RI), Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD) authored the articles, two individuals familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast. Cicilline and Rep. […]
Senior officials working with the White House coronavirus task force and Operation Warp Speed are pushing for states to begin handing out some of their excess COVID-19 vaccine doses to whoever wants it, according to four individuals familiar with the matter. The plan is already in motion, federal officials already talking to states about it. If further enacted, could upend months of debate and strategizing about who should get the vaccine first. But officials argue that this first-come, first-served approach may be one of the only ways to ensure that millions of vaccine doses don’t expire on the shelf. So far, […]
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Health and Infectious Diseases, said Monday that the American public would likely begin to receive the COVID-19 vaccine somewhat early in the spring but that it would take several months before an overwhelming majority of the population was immunized. “I think people are getting a little confused about when they can expect [the vaccine]. If you start vaccinating parts of the general public in April, by the time you get to the end of August … that’s when we should see an overwhelming majority,” Fauci said, in an interview with The […]
As the Food and Drug Administration authorized Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use on Friday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, was out for a walk in the dark. “Sorry if I’m out of breath,” he said. “I’m walking. I promise I’m not having a heart attack.” He’s walking these days, he says, because his schedule has been so tightly packed in recent weeks that by the time he gets home it’s too ill-lit to run. And this day in particular has been extra draining, he says, primarily because of the anticipation that the vaccine would soon be […]
When the White House announced on Tuesday that President Donald Trump would be hosting a summit to spotlight the progress on a COVID-19 vaccine summit, it came as news to many of the stakeholders involved in the vaccine production process. According to three individuals familiar with the matter, including senior administration officials working on the federal government’s coronavirus response, key members of the White House’s coronavirus task force and top representatives of the pharmaceutical industry were unaware of the event before it became public. The event, first reported by STAT News, is set to take place at the White House on […]
In Nemaha County, a small community in rural Kansas with just over 10,000 people, a single nurse is triaging more than 600 COVID-19 positive cases over the phone because the community hospital where she works has no space left to accept new patients. In fact, health administrators in the county told The Daily Beast that there’s no room left at the closest regional hospitals, more than an hour away, either. Over the last several weeks the county has experienced a massive COVID outbreak, primarily, doctors there say, because local officials bucked a July order by the governor directing counties to implement […]
Despite publicly downplaying it, President Donald Trump and his team of White House advisers have embraced the controversial belief that herd immunity will help control the COVID-19 outbreak, according to three senior health officials working with the White House coronavirus task force. More worrisome for those officials: they have begun taking steps to turn the concept into policy. Officials say that White House adviser Scott Atlas first started pushing herd immunity this past summer despite significant pushback from scientists, doctors and infectious disease experts that the concept was dangerous and would result in far more Americans getting sick and dying. Since […]
Health officials and scientists working on the Trump administration’s coronavirus response said on Tuesday they are personally offended by the White House’s announcement that it has successfully ended the COVID-19 pandemic—a pandemic that is, in fact, worsening. In a statement released Tuesday afternoon The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy said that it considered “ending the COVID-19 pandemic” to be one of President Donald Trump’s major first term accomplishments. The office released a corresponding report that listed achievements of the Trump administration in the area of science and innovation. “It’s mind boggling,” one official said of the White House’s […]
In a letter sent to Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun Tuesday, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) said he is launching a probe into the circumstances surrounding Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s decision to address the Republican National Convention from Jerusalem. Castro, the chair of the subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Pompeo’s choice to speak at the convention “may violate the Hatch Act, government-wide regulations implementing that Act, and State Department policies,” according to Castro’s letter, which The Daily Beast obtained. The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from participating in certain political activities. And as […]
On a late afternoon in March, a large military aircraft bearing the Russian Federation insignia descended into John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. Its mission: to deliver personal protective equipment and ventilators to nearby hospitals scrambling to treat patients during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic. Gov. Andrew Cuomo had pleaded for weeks with the federal government for additional resources, particularly ventilators, to treat the thousands of COVID-19 patients across the state. Yet news of the Russian delivery surprised those in the governor’s office working to obtain additional medical equipment. They’d thought the ventilator support would come from […]
Two key witnesses in Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-WI) probe into corruption allegations involving presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his son Hunter are unlikely to appear before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee before the 2020 presidential election even if subpoenaed, according to an individual familiar with the matter and another individual with knowledge of the probe. Johnson, the chair of the Senate committee, is leading two separate but related investigations, one into the origins of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and one into Joe Biden’s former dealings in Ukraine and Hunter Biden’s financial relationship with […]
The White House is mandating that all officials and staffers in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building agree to random coronavirus testing in the following weeks, according to two individuals familiar and a notice obtained by The Daily Beast. This is the first time the White House has made it mandatory that all employees get tested for the coronavirus despite multiple people testing positive, according to those same individuals. Officials working in the building, including those on the National Security Council and those working closely with the White House, told The Daily Beast medical professionals did draw their blood for antibody testing […]
Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, said on Friday that she expected to soon see an increase in mortalities among Americans infected with the virus—a statement placing her at odds with the president, who has touted a falling death rate as a sign of success in his approach to the virus. “In the United States we have an increase in the number of cases over the last particularly three weeks,” Birx said during a virtual COVID19 conference. “We have not seen this result in increased mortality but that is expected as the disease continues to […]
Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent a letter to Chairman Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) on Wednesday, saying they would oppose consideration of President Donald Trump’s State Department nominees until the senator dramatically revamped the committee’s work. The letter, obtained by The Daily Beast, noted that the Idaho Republican had held just two hearings all year and demanded that he facilitate “a sustained, concrete, and public agenda for policy and oversight.” “The Committee’s agenda has been largely devoid of the serious, sustained, and bipartisan policy and oversight work that have been hallmarks of this Committee,” the letter says. “We cannot […]
Doctors behind a COVID-modeling study used by the president’s coronavirus task force are now warning that virus hot spots are beginning to converge and jump from county to county as people increase their travel for work and summer vacation. According to doctors working on a study put together by PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the virus is moving along major highways and interstates—such I-10 in California, I-85 in the south and I-95 on the East Coast—as states continue to reopen their economies. With an uptick of coronavirus cases taking place in states in the south and southwestern parts of the […]
President Donald Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard to quell Black Lives Matter protests in the nation’s capital has cost U.S. taxpayers about $21 million as of this past Friday, a spokesperson for the guard told The Daily Beast. That projected cost includes the deployment of the guard to the District from 12 different states, the spokesperson said. The official mission, the spokesperson said, was “to support the D.C. civil unrest operations.” About $18.2 million of the total cost of the operation was dedicated to pay and allowance for the guard and about $2.9 million went to operations and management, […]
Former State Department Inspector General Steve Linick told Congress that he was “shocked” to find out President Trump decided to remove him from his post last month and that senior officials in the State Department had consistently told him they were satisfied with the office’s work. “I can tell you … that I’ve been given no valid reason that would justify my removal,” Linick said, according to his interview transcripts released by multiple congressional committees Capitol Hill Wednesday. “I had a number of other contacts within the department, senior level, who always commented that we treated people fairly, that we were […]
Since the beginning of this year, Florida has experienced an uptick in the number of pneumonia and influenza deaths, according to data from the Centers for Disease and Control. Experts and Trump administration officials responsible for keeping tabs on mortality rates across the country believe that many of those individuals had likely contracted and died from COVID-19. According to the data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, since the beginning of the year there has been a total of 1,519 deaths in Florida where pneumonia and influenza were listed as the underlying cause. By comparison, in the same time […]
A new analysis being reviewed by the White House shows southern states that moved too quickly to relax social distancing guidelines face significant risk for a resurgence of the coronavirus over the next several weeks. In several cases, counties will see hundreds of additional cases by June 17. The study, which was put together by PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, is part of a data set being reviewed by top coronavirus task force officials and people working with the team, The Daily Beast reported earlier this month. A previous model by the PolicyLab predicted that if officials moved too quickly […]
One of the studies that the Trump administration is relying on as it moves ahead with plans to reopen the U.S. economy, warns that even if states take the necessary steps to ease social distancing restrictions, counties across the country—both big and small—will see a significant spread of coronavirus. The study, which was put together by PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, is in the hands of top coronavirus task force officials and those working with the team, sources confirmed to The Daily Beast. It projects that if officials move too quickly and too aggressively to reopen in mid May, individual […]