Gov. Cuomo Now Complaining that Vaccine Process Is Moving Too 'Fast'

Cortney O'Brien | November 18, 2020 12:30 PM

On Wednesday Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) lamented how lawmakers are putting politics over people's lives when it comes to the coronavirus vaccine. Pfizer announced that their vaccine candidate, developed with BioNTech, is 95 percent effective after its Phase 3 study. It's news to celebrate, and Operation Warp Speed, the public-private partnership introduced by the Trump administration, deserves some credit. But liberal politicians like Gov. Andrew Cuomo just can't bring themselves to utter the words, "good job."

Instead, he's now complaining that the process is moving too "fast."

“Why is it moving so fast?" Gov. Cuomo asked on Hot 97’s Ebro in the Morning radio show on Tuesday. "Two reasons: money and ego. The first drug company that has the vaccine, that is big money."

He expanded on the "ego" argument.

"President, it’s ego. On the way out the door he wants to be able to say, ‘I solved COVID because I discovered a vaccine. Nah, it’s all BS. He didn’t do anything,” Cuomo continued.
“It’s the drug companies and nobody is going to trust him saying it’s a safe vaccine. But you’re going to see this play out, they’ll do what’s called an emergency authorization by the FDA.”
He continued: “I think that could happen as soon as January where the FDA, because Trump will push them, will say we authorized the drug for emergency use, and you could see it starting in January before Biden gets into office and that’s why I’m pushing so hard to make sure that we have a process in place to check what the FDA says before people start getting the vaccine in New York.”

Cuomo has also threatened to block distribution of the COVID vaccine in New York.