March 4th 2020

By Walter Einenkel

Daily Kos

As COVID-19 (aka the coronavirus) spreads in different areas of the world and now in the United States, the Trump administration is trying to figure out the best way to show that it’s doing a responsible job handling the public health crisis. Donald Trump seems to think the best way to do this is to get the former host of The Apprentice behind a desk, point cameras at him, and let him pretend to know things. So Trump and his crack science force led by Vice President Mike Pence sat with pharmaceutical company heads who are working on coronavirus-related treatments and vaccines.

In the clip below, you can see Trump, arms folded in his most defensive posture (because he clearly knows he doesn’t understand anything these eggheads are talking about), try to add a little magic to the science of vaccines: “So, this would be a combination of a vaccine and also it will—put it in a different way—make you better, quicker?” [This is the sound of my eyes widening and my mind trying not to explode.] Dr. Leonard Schleifer, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals CEO, explains that, no, vaccines are vaccines and drugs are drugs:

DR. SCHLEIFER: Well, think of it this way, if you get immunized with one of these vaccines, you’re going to make antibodies to protect you. We are going to give you those antibodies so you don’t have to go through that process.

In Trump’s defense, he mostly believes in some archaic form of eugenics where the top of the genetic pyramid consists of Donald Trump, and then everyone else below him.

Regeneron has been working on a treatment drug for COVID-19 called REGN3048-3051, which is starting the first in-human clinical trials sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Posted with permission