It is too early to declare victory over a pandemic that has killed more than 400,000 people in the United States. That is the final word of Vice President Mike Pence’s coronavirus task force in a report delivered to President Trump and his successor Joe Biden.
The sobering conclusion of the document, detailing the work of the task force, marks a break from Trump’s hyperbolic claims of “miracles” and frequent declarations that triumph was at hand.
In one of his last duties as vice president, Pence delivered the 140-page report to Trump on his final full day in office.
It serves as a self-assessed report card for Pence’s own performance as head of the task force, listing goals achieved — from the availability of ventilators to the historic speed of vaccine development.
For a vice president who has seen his relationship with the president and the Trump base fractured by the attack on the U.S. Capitol, it will be seen as an attempt to suggest things might have been even worse were it not for his steady hand on the task force.
Yet, there is no escaping the rising death toll, which could top half a million by Feb. 19, according to the Institute for Health Metrics at the University of Washington.
So, while the report says action by the task force helped avoid the most catastrophic scenarios, it says: “This is no declaration of victory. More than 400,000 of our fellow Americans have lost their lives to the coronavirus, and although hospitalizations and mortality rates are in nationwide decline, the virus continues to exact a toll on lives and livelihoods.”
Yet two months ago, not for the first time, Trump declared victory at a White House event to mark the development of coronavirus vaccines.
“This will vanquish the problem, this horrible scourge — as I call it, the ‘China virus,’ because that’s where it came from,” he said, echoing triumphal claims made on the campaign trail.
Dr. Irwin Redlener, founder of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, welcomed the new honesty of a report that recognized the desperate situation.
“This whole experience from last February to now has been varying degrees of uncomfortable for the president’s entourage, including the vice president and the professionals on the task force,” he said. “This has been a tough time, and the fact that his statement is made now is a nod at least to the honesty that we’ve been craving all along.”
From today, the pandemic becomes someone else’s problem. Last week, the Biden transition unveiled its $1.9 trillion plan to tackle the pandemic. As well as an economic stimulus, it will scale up testing, vaccination, and genomic surveillance with funding for a 100,000-strong corps of public health workers.
But the outgoing task force’s report suggests the country is already in good shape to meet the challenge — even as the virus claims 4,000 lives each day.
“As of the date of this report, the supply chain has been strengthened, testing is available to all who need it, innovative therapeutics have been developed that are daily saving lives, and safe and effective vaccines are being distributed and administered across the land,” it says.
The report details how testing capacity increased from 3,000 tests conducted by Feb. 26, 2020, to more than 2 million being performed every day almost a year later.
“The health care system was never overwhelmed, and no American in need of a ventilator or ICU bed ever went without one,” says the report.
“Moreover, with two safe and effective vaccines developed in less than a year through Operation Warp Speed—a medical miracle—a bright light now shines at the end of the tunnel. A nationwide vaccination effort is underway, and every American has good reason to hope that our nation’s long period of trial and tribulation is finally coming to a close.”
It also said the task force had increased the supply of personal protective equipment, developed science-based mitigation strategies, and forged strong relationships with state and local authorities to facilitate federal coordination and support.
But Steven Woolf, a population health expert and a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, dismissed the list of achievements as “ridiculous.” He said the Trump administration had shown a lack of resolve and even promoted misinformation at times, adding to problems.
“The only one that I consider a success was development of the vaccine — which was a fabulous accomplishment,” he said. “But most of the other elements have been abysmal failures, and the fact that we have 400,000 dead Americans is because of that.”
Redlener said it was simply untrue to say health services had not been overwhelmed and the report had not even mentioned how a bungled testing rollout delayed progress in tracking the scale of the pandemic in the crucial early weeks.
“To me, this looks like an early foray into Mike Pence’s presidential campaign strategy for 2024,” he said. “It’s hype — overblown and inaccurate.”
