White House holds round-table discussion for COVID-19 vaccines

WASHINGTON D.C. — Only 10 months after COVID-19 reached America, there are now potentially two effective vaccines ready to be distributed once approved.

“We harnessed the full power of government, the genius of American scientists, and the might of American industry to save million and millions of lives all over the world,” says President Donald Trump.

In May, President Donald Trump’s administration began Operation Warp Speed, and provided a total of $14 billion to accelerate the vaccine development in advance.

Tuesday afternoon, President Trump held a vaccine summit featuring governors, pharmacies, and distributors to discuss and highlight the strategy for getting a safe, effective vaccine distributed as quick as possible.

“We are very hopeful that the FDA will authorize the Pfizer vaccine within days,” said President Trump. “We got to get it moving and Moderna vaccine almost immediately thereafter.”

“Every American that wants the vaccine will be able to get the vaccine, and we think by spring we’re going to be in a position that nobody would have believed possible just a few months ago,” Trump explained.

President Trump says a partnership with Walgreens and CVS will help deliver vaccines as soon as the states request them. In addition, the President says a partnership with UPS and FedEx will ship doses directly from warehouses to the designated sites.

Governor Bill Lee was in attendance and said Tennessee started pandemic immunization preparedness many years ago with the ‘Fight Flu TN.’

“We do once a year abroad immunization day across the state where we vaccinate thousands of people in every one of our 95 counties. That process gave us a blueprint for how to do what it is that we’re going to be doing in the next few weeks,” said Gov. Lee.

Gov. Lee says Tennessee built an infrastructure in the very beginning of the pandemic that has created a great partnership with testing and a partnership with health care providers.

“Now it’s our turn to do what needs to be done to get it out to, in our case, the millions of Tennesseans that will have the choice to take this. We want to communicate it in a way that they are fully informed so that they can make a choice,” explained Gov. Lee.