Trump congratulates himself for vaccines happening ‘on my watch’

Following the announcement by Moderna that its coronavirus vaccine is 94.5 per cent effective, Donald Trump was quick to claim credit for the discovery happening on his watch.

The Moderna announcement comes just a week after Pfizer announced that its vaccine was shown to have an efficacy of 90 per cent.

The president tweeted: “Another Vaccine just announced. This time by Moderna, 95% effective. For those great ‘historians’, please remember that these great discoveries, which will end the China Plague, all took place on my watch!”

Administration officials rallied behind the president, with Secretary of Health of Human Services Alex Azar tweeting that there it was another reminder that there is “light at the end of the tunnel”.

The secretary also posted that president Trump’s Operation Warp Speed provided approximately $2 billion in funding and operational support to the development, manufacturing, and eventual delivery of the Moderna vaccine.

First daughter Ivanka Trump also added her congratulations to Moderna and her father, adding the campaign phrase: “Promise kept!”

Others on Twitter were less than enthused by the president claiming credit for a vaccine for a disease he has repeatedly played down despite the mounting death toll; for congratulating himself; and for the continued use of his racist nickname for Covid-19.

“Interesting how you want to take credit for the vaccine when you first said Covid-19 was a hoax & later said it's no big deal,” tweeted one person.

“Me me me me me… Historians also remember the tens of thousands who died…” said another.

A particularly succinct reply to President Trump’s tweet from one user read: “Thanks, Joe Biden will take it from there!”

Democratic President-elect Joe Biden, who will be in office when a vaccine becomes available to the wider population, also congratulated the scientists.

“Today's news of a second vaccine is further reason to feel hopeful,” he said on Twitter. “What was true with the first vaccine remains true with the second: we are still months away. Until then, Americans need to continue to practice social-distancing and mask-wearing to get the virus under control.”

The US government has a deal with Moderna for 100 million doses of the vaccine, with an option to buy a further 400 million.

Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel told Fox Business on Monday that no one in the trial got any severe disease, describing it as a gamechanger.

If the drug receives emergency use authorisation from the Food and Drug Administration, the company will cork with the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to provide vaccines to high-risk individuals first, with 20 million doses available by the end of the year.

Wider availability of the vaccine could see a return to normality across much of the country by the beginning of the 2021 school year.

The Moderna drug may be easier to distribute than the Pfizer vaccine as it can be kept in a refrigerator for seven days, whereas Pfizer’s must be kept at temperatures well below freezing, making transportation and storage more challenging.

According to Johns Hopkins University, there have now been more than 11 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the US, and 246,526 officially recorded deaths.