Governor says NY will run own vaccine review

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Thursday his state will conduct its own review of the safety and effectiveness of any COVID-19 vaccines approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, before recommending them to New Yorkers, adding that he fears the White House could strong-arm the FDA into using insufficiently rigorous standards to approve vaccines.

Cuomo is ordering the secondary review so he can "look at the camera" and tell New Yorkers that "it is safe to take".

"I'm not going to trust the federal government's opinion, and I wouldn't recommend (a vaccine) to New Yorkers, based on the federal government's opinion," said the Democratic governor, who has often clashed with US President Donald Trump over the pandemic response.

Cuomo announced the appointment of a 16-person vaccine distribution and implementation task force, led by the state health department.

He said the task force would first study the efficacy of the vaccine and then administer the state's eventual distribution of the drug.

His announcement follows Trump saying Wednesday that the White House "may or may not" approve new FDA guidelines that would toughen the process for approving a vaccine to prevent COVID-19. Trump suggested the FDA's plan "sounds like a political move".

On Thursday, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn declined to comment on Trump's statements that the White House could override the agency if it implemented tougher standards. The new guidelines would allow additional time to evaluate a vaccine's safety and perhaps push emergency authorization of a vaccine past Election Day on Nov 3.

Reelection matters

In explaining his reasoning, Trump said, "I have tremendous trust in these massive companies.... When they come back and they say that we have something that works and absolutely works, and they're coming back with great numbers and statistics and tests ...I don't see any reason why it should be delayed further. Because if they delay it a week or two weeks or three weeks, that's a lot of lives you're talking about."

Last week, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden accused Trump of trying to speed up the approval of a vaccine to help him win reelection.

If the state panel determines a vaccine is safe, Cuomo said the committee will determine how to purchase, store and distribute the drug to the state's 19.5 million residents.

Cuomo said the plan would focus on prioritizing who gets the vaccine first, establishing a wide-scale distribution network, tracking who has been vaccinated and launching a massive public education campaign.

On Thursday, a forecast published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, now projects there will be 214,000 to 226,000 COVID-19 deaths in the US by Oct 17.

The CDC's ensemble forecast only offers projections a few weeks into the future. The previous forecast, published Sept 17, projected up to 218,000 COVID-19 deaths by Oct 10.

As of Friday morning, more than 202,800 people in the US have died from COVID-19, with nearly 7 million infected with the virus, Johns Hopkins University data shows.

The Metropolitan Opera in New York City will skip an entire season for the first time in its nearly 140-year history and intends to return from the pandemic layoff next September.

Met General Manager Peter Gelb said additional losses projected at $54 million raise the total for the company to $154 million since the pandemic began.