After Casting Doubt on It Himself, Gov. Cuomo Set To Launch Campaign To Fight Vaccine Skepticism
Vaccines don’t become more or less effective because of who the president is. Those developed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic won’t be any safer if Joe Biden takes the oath of office as America’s 46th president on Jan. 20 of next year.
The mRNA technology pioneered by Moderna and Pfizer won’t be any less novel when it’s rolled out. The data from the Phase 3 trials won’t change just because the resident of the Oval Office does.
Someone tell Andrew Cuomo this.
Just a few months ago, the New York governor was one of the most toxic voices in terms of spreading skepticism about any forthcoming COVID-19 vaccine.
Short of Alex Jones winning a seat in Congress during the 2020 election, it’s difficult to imagine any individual in a position of elected power who would have pumped more innuendoes about vaccine safety into general circulation than Cuomo did — all because he was a believer in the conspiracy theory that President Donald Trump would somehow pressure the Food and Drug Administration and various other government organs to approve a dangerous inoculation.
Now, he’s launching a campaign designed to fight the vaccine skepticism he created. Just don’t ask him who created it.
And create it he did. Here are some choice quotes from Cuomo before and days after the election.
On Sept. 24, according to Fox News: “Frankly, I’m not going to trust the federal government’s opinion and I wouldn’t recommend to New Yorkers based on the federal government’s opinion.” Cuomo said. “We’re going to put together our own review committee headed by the Department of Health to review the vaccine, and I’m appointing a committee that is going to come up with a vaccine distribution and implementation plan on how we will do it.”
Sept. 25, MSNBC: “Trump has politicized this entire situation” and has “overridden health and science with politics,” Cuomo said.
“I don’t trust the president and I don’t trust the FDA. … They have lied about COVID from day one,” he continued, adding Americans shouldn’t trust the FDA, either.
Nov. 1, news conference: Vaccines would be “approved by the FDA, which I’m sure will be done on an expeditious basis under this president, if not a reckless basis.”
Nov. 9, in an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America” after it was announced Pfizer’s vaccine had demonstrated over 90 percent efficacy in trials: “Well, it’s good news/bad news. The good news is the Pfizer tests look good and we’ll have a vaccine shortly. The bad news is that it’s about two months before Joe Biden takes over and that means this administration is going to be implementing a vaccine plan.”
!@NYGovCuomo says it’s “bad news” Pfizer’s Covid vaccine came during the Trump Admin; says he’s going to work w/ other governors to “stop” distribution “before it does damage” pic.twitter.com/ULembNWokW
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) November 9, 2020
Now that it’s clear we will soon have a vaccine and Biden will likely be the next resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Cuomo is trying to combat vaccine skepticism without acknowledging where that skepticism came from in the first place.
“We’re going to have to have a real public education campaign to battle [COVID-19 vaccine] skepticism,” Cuomo said during a news conference Wednesday.
“Just think of the math on this. You have to get to 75 percent to 85 percent of the overall population vaccinated for the vaccine to be effective. … Fifty percent of the population says right now they don’t want to take the vaccine. They don’t trust the approval process, they’re worried about vaccines in general, but 50 percent are now saying they don’t want to take the vaccine.
“You cannot get to 75 percent if 50 percent don’t take it. That’s — even I can do that math.
“So we’re going to need a real public education to dispel the skepticism that already exists.”
The number, if Gallup polling is to be believed, is closer to 60 percent, but never mind. The point is that despite COVID-19 being the first major pandemic in a century and the first to grind the gears of a fully globalized economy to a halt, there are still 40 percent of people who don’t seem inclined to take the vaccine.
Oh, and remember the special state review that Cuomo was supposed to do? As Allysia Finley noted last week in The Wall Street Journal, “On Wednesday, he announced 170,000 doses would be available to New York health-care workers and nursing home residents as soon as Dec. 15.
“As Fox News reports, that would be five days after the FDA is scheduled to meet to review Pfizer’s application for emergency use authorization of its vaccine. No word on whether Mr. Cuomo is still planning a separate state review, but it would have to be done in warp speed if he hopes to begin distributing a vaccine by Dec. 15.
“Meanwhile, Mr. Cuomo threatened to keep New York businesses and residents under tight restriction until 75% to 85% of the state population gets inoculated.
“To sum up: The governor plans to punish New Yorkers because they bought into the vaccine skepticism he promoted out of rank partisanship.”
To be fair, the skepticism in terms of uptake isn’t just because the most visible politician on COVID policy not named Donald Trump spent the entirety of this past autumn pumping conspiratorial innuendoes into our national discourse for reasons that weren’t difficult to discern, but I’m sure more than a few vaccine shirkers remember the fear he stoked.
If they didn’t, many on social media did:
Andrew Cuomo will battle Andrew Cuomo’s vaccine skepticism because this is all a show to these maniacs.
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) December 9, 2020
Cuomo said federal processes weren’t good enough to approve a COVID vaccine (as of today, Canada and UK have already approved it but we haven’t), so he’d need his own commission before allowing New Yorkers to get it. He’s biggest hypocrite of this entire pandemic. @JaniceDean
— Ellen Carmichael (@ellencarmichael) December 9, 2020
“to battle the vaccine skepticism that I stoked”
Fixed it for you.
— Seizer Pouncicus ?????? (@TastyKAR) December 9, 2020
And yet Cuomo is still promoting his book on leadership in the time of COVID-19. Apparently, that leadership involves embracing certain aspects of epidemiology and public health policy depending on the party affiliation of the individual in charge. The vaccine was dubious at best when Trump’s pathway to a second term was wide open. Now that Biden is the presumptive president-elect, it’s time to fight vaccine skepticism.
The vaccine didn’t change. The virus didn’t change. The necessity of vaccination uptake didn’t change.
The only thing that changed is the motive Andrew Cuomo might have regarding sowing fear about the COVID-19 vaccine.
He’s about to find out, however, that his conspiracy theories are a bell not easily unrung — and it could cost lives.
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