Coronavirus Latest Death Toll Hits 2,801; Vaccine Won't Be Affordable, Azar Says

Health and human services secretary Alex Azar told a dumbfounded House committee he cannot promise the new coronavirus vaccine to undergo clinical trials in April will be affordable enough to ordinary Americans.

He made these remarks, which angered committee Democrats, a few hours before appearing with president Donald Trump and listening him announce vice president Mike Pence as point man for the U.S. anti-COVID-19 campaign.

Azar refused to promise committee members the coronavirus vaccine developed by California-based biotech firm Moderna Inc. in record time will be affordable to all Americans. He basically argued Moderna and other investors have to make money when he said price controls won't attain this aim. Azar was formerly president of the U.S. division of Eli Lilly and Company, a major pharmaceutical company, from 2012 to 2017.

"We would want to ensure that we work to make it affordable, but we can't control that price because we need the private sector to invest," said Azar in answer to a question by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-IL. "Price controls won't get us there."

Schakowsky asked Azar if the Trump administration can ensure a coronavirus vaccine is affordable to all. She is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that grilled both Azar and Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Both Trump officials appeared before the committee to request $2.5 billion for developing the vaccine and acquiring protective gear like facemasks. Democrats, however, argue this pitiful amount reflects president Donald Trump's contention the furor surrounding COVID-19 outbreak and its spread in the U.S. is fake news created by the media and the CDC.

Democrats claim it might cost at least $8.5 billon to make sure COVID-19 doesn’t spread far and wide into the country. They also slammed Trump for taking $535 million from the budget to fight ebola virus disease and using this against COVID-19.

"Secretary Azar is refusing to promise that a Coronavirus vaccine will be affordable to every American. Kick them out of office," said Sen. Brian Schatz, D-HI.

Liberal public policy research and advocacy organization the Center for American Progress called Azar's statement "shameful," adding "This is a global health crisis, and everyone should have the right to medication that will help protect them from this virus."

On Monday, Moderna delivered the first batch of its coronavirus vaccine to the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIH through its National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in Maryland will launch the first human tests in April.

These tests will determine if Moderna's experimental vaccine based on messenger RNA (mRNA) can help defeat the COVID-19 outbreak now threatening to turn into a deadlier global pandemic

Moderna said it finished manufacturing about 500 vials on February 7. NIAID said it expects to start a clinical trial involving up to 25 healthy volunteers. The trials will determine if two doses of the new vaccine are safe and can induce an immune response likely to protect against infection caused by the "severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)," which is the virus that causes COVID-19.

As of 1:00 a.m. ET, there were 82,164 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide and 2,801 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE). The 60 cases in the U.S. is the eighth highest number in the world. There have been no deaths linked to this coronavirus in this country but there are now 15 confirmed cases.

A 15th case was reported Wednesday in Solano, California. The case is troubling because it seems to indicate the first community transmission of this disease in the U.S. If the community transmission is proven, the U.S. will likely trod the same path now being taken by Italy, South Korea and Iran.