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Trump’s Vaccine Promises Aren’t Progress, They’re Propaganda
It’s not that progress isn’t being made — it’s that Trump’s search for a Hail Mary is eroding the already fragile public’s trust
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
I didn’t watch a nanosecond of the Republican National Convention last week, but I couldn’t escape Trump’s bold proclamation that the darkest days of the coronavirus pandemic will soon come to an end. “We are delivering lifesaving therapies and will produce a vaccine before the end of the year — or maybe even sooner,” the American autocrat declared in his acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination. Later, he repeated the pledge to deliver “a safe and effective vaccine this year” along with the promise to “crush the virus.”
We heard about some of these “lifesaving therapies” days prior when Trump and two health officials announced the emergency approval of blood plasma treatments for hospitalized Covid-19 patients that purportedly could reduce deaths. Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, argued that 35 out of 100 Covid-19 patients “would have been saved because of the administration of plasma.”
