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Unsanitized: The COVID-19 Report for Oct. 8, 2020

Late-Night Infomercial Trump Hawking
Unapproved COVID Treatment

Plus, Trump backs out of the next debate

 

The headquarters of Donald Trump's new favorite drug company, Regeneron,
in Tarrytown, NY. (Lev Radin/Sipa via AP Images)

First Response

**** The President, now reduced to being a
quarantine vlogger with 26 days until the election, gave another update
in
front of the White House yesterday, and he actually managed to break a
little news in this. At around 2:15 in, he starts talking about the
companies in the final stages of coronavirus vaccines, and that we'll
have them "very very shortly. I think we should have them before the
election, but frankly the politics gets involved and that's OK, they
want to play their games, it's going to be right after the
election."

That's the first time that I can remember that Trump has admitted the
reality of the timeline-at least in the way that he admits
anything-and that a vaccine will not be the October surprise. He
blamed politics but it's clearly due to the FDA safety guidelines

requiring Phase 3 trial participants to be observed for two months
before seeking emergency approval. The White House tried to block
release of those guidelines but the FDA got them out anyway, and
that's informing Trump's sudden acknowledgement.

However, always the salesman, Trump is now on to the next thing, and if
he loses the election he surely has a future alongside Montel Williams
and Cher in the lucrative infomercial space. This is an actual
transcript:

"I wasn't feeling so hot, and within a very short period of time
they gave me Regeneron, it's called Regeneron. And it was like
unbelievable. I felt good immediately, I felt as good three days ago as
I do now!... I know they call them therapeutic, but to me, this wasn't
just therapeutic, it just made me better. I call that a cure. That's
much more important to me than the vaccine."

Regeneron is not an approved drug, it's still in clinical trials, and
in fact it's not a drug at all because Regeneron is the name of the
manufacturer, not the drug. It's more of a drug cocktail that
synthetically mimics antibodies produced in the human body. It doesn't
work overnight, as Trump claimed.

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**** Much of the video is devoted to Trump getting
the drug from Regeneron, and another from Eli Lilly, approved for
emergency use. "We're trying to get them on an emergency basis... I
have emergency use authorization all set, and we've got to get it
signed now," he said.

In fact, Regeneron just filed an application

for emergency use authorization of its drug cocktail with the FDA on
Wednesday. The infomercial president was pleading on behalf of a drug
manufacturer, pressuring the scientists to approve the medication based
on personal anecdote. Trump promises "hundreds of thousands" of
doses set to go, although the company only says they have 50,000
available.

Trump has taken about umpteen drugs (we don't know how many because he
had the doctors sign NDAs
)
during his course of treatment at Walter Reed, which would have cost a
non-president somewhere around $100,000
.
so why he fixated on the one from Regeneron is unclear. To be fair he
did also mention a treatment from Eli Lilly, which the company says has
performed well in tests
.
It is true that Trump used to own stock

in Regeneron as of 2017. But it was a relatively small amount and that
was three years ago.

Regeneron has also received $500 million in federal dollars
to
develop these treatments. The stock soared

in after-hours trading once Trump's video was released. Trump said he
would work it so the drug would be released "for free," and if
that's true there's no real reason for the stock to go up. But
nobody really believes Trump these days, least of all investors who know
how the pharmaceutical system works.

More likely, this was a quintessentially Trumpian display of
misdirection. The hopes of a pre-election vaccine announcement have been
cut off, so now we have some therapeutics, which are "like a cure"
in the Trump mind, that he can peddle to the public. If the Regeneron
and Lilly drugs are cures then the coronavirus is solved, according to
Trump, and most importantly, he solved it. So he's pressuring the FDA
to get it out so he can announce the cure to great fanfare.

At any rate, there's no doubt that we're not far removed from Trump
hawking reverse mortgages.

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Mr. President, You're Muted

Speaking of Trump, his campaign is not excited about videoconferencing
technology, apparently. The Commission on Presidential Debates announced
that the town hall-style matchup between Trump and Joe Biden scheduled
for next week would be virtual
.
I was looking forward to it, because the most patient man in media,
C-SPAN's Steve Scully, was set to host, and I was hoping he wouldn't
call the candidates by name but as "Republican, Line 1" and
"Democrat, Line 2."

But it doesn't look right now like there will be a debate. Immediately
Trump told Fox News that he wouldn't "waste my time
" with it, and
then his campaign followed up

with a similar statement. Campaign manager Bill Stepien said that Trump
"will have posted multiple negative tests prior to the debate,"
making there no need to change the format. Trump hasn't even disclosed

when he tested negative before contracting the virus, so going on their
word is suspect.

I guess that since Trump's only go-to debate move is to interrupt and
talk over everybody, and you can't do that remotely, he's going to
back out. Either that or it would be unmanly to submit to the Commission
on Presidential Debates' wishes. At any rate, I'm going to have an
early night next week. And that's what matters in the end.

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Today I Learned

* Now stimulus talks are "back on," according to the president

but not according to the man who controls whether the talks will be
successful, Mitch McConnell. (Washington Post)

* Some Republicans have urged Trump to restart talks

but they're talking to the wrong person. (Politico)

* Billionaires' net worth is up 27 percent
during the pandemic. (BBC)

* Women are struggling to juggle work and family

right now, without much help, and are burning out. (HuffPost)

* 100 million people have been thrown into extreme poverty

globally because of the pandemic. (Wall Street Journal)

* Over 40 airlines have failed around the world
.
(CNBC)

* Saturday Night Live had to pay its audience as extras

to get around city restrictions on reopening. (New York Times)

* New Halloween costume: sexy mail-in ballot
.
(Boing Boing)

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