ANOTHER Trump success story: Moderna

[Matt]

Its been several hours since Moderna has announced that its vaccine is 94.5% effective and no one has posted about that here...

This vaccine has been developed under Operation Warp Speed, an initiative from the Trump Administration. It turns out that the administration's lazer focus on partnering with pharmaceutical companies to develop a vaccine by year's end was absolutely correct.

[Turkeytop]

But wait. Didn't President Trump say that the corona virus was a hoax created by the Democrats? He said it would be forgotten about on the morning of Nov 4.

What part could he play in creating a vaccine against a hoax?

[Honeyman]

If Trump gave 2 shits about the American people, he would stop this ridiculous stolen election charade and start the transition to work with the new administration to get this vaccine distribution going. The scientific head of "Warp Speed" even said the same thing

Moncef Slaoui, a pharmaceuticals executive whom Trump appointed to accelerate the development of a vaccine, called on the White House last week to make contact with Biden’s transition team.

“I totally agree with him, very much so,” Fauci told NBC, referring to Slaoui’s comments. “I mean the virus is not going to stop and call a timeout while things change. The virus is just going to keep going. The process is just going to keep going.”

[km1125]

We should be hearing from a third vendor soon too. There will be lots of vaccine available by the end of the year.

[MotorCityRadioFreak]

Shout out to the scientists at Moderna! By the way, how many Republicans here are going to get said vaccine? I can't see McLovin standing in line next to the "peasants".

[Turkeytop]

We should be hearing from a third vendor soon too. There will be lots of vaccine available by the end of the year.

Soon, the competing beands will be advertising on TV along with theie fast talking disclaimers.

Ask your Doctor if this is right for you.

Maycausehemmorhoidshalitosisdiarheaconstipationdrowsinessinsomniaincreasedsexualdesireanderectionlastingmore
than3days.

[km1125]

If I understand correctly, the Moderna vaccine only requires regular refrigeration for storage. This would be quite an improvement over the Pfizer one that needs between -70 and -100F storage.
That would help with widespread distribution. The major facilities could still use the Pfizer stuff.

[MotorCityRadioFreak]

A vaccine does no good if people refuse to get it.

[km1125]

Some folks can refuse but others will accept it.

Between the various vaccines that are available and are taken, the folks who already got sick and recovered, and the improved care so that even those that get sick don't die, this thing will be over at the end spring.

[TC Talks]

If Trump refuses to rely on his CDC experts, I can't see how he takes credit for the work they do. This was all Fauci.

[Turkeytop]

The Denier in Chief takes credit for developing a vaccine for a hoax.

[Rate This]

Its been several hours since Moderna has announced that its vaccine is 94.5% effective and no one has posted about that here...

This vaccine has been developed under Operation Warp Speed, an initiative from the Trump Administration. It turns out that the administration's lazer focus on partnering with pharmaceutical companies to develop a vaccine by year's end was absolutely correct.

Any administration would have done the exact same thing. Who else would they partner with? Tooth Paste manufacturers? Dish Soap formulators?

[Turkeytop]

. Who else would they partner with? Tooth Paste manufacturers? Dish Soap formulators?

Trump made a deal with Kodak

How a botched COVID ‘loan’ to Kodak made the company and government look like idiots

Among the milestones of the federal government’s half-baked responses to the COVID-19 crisis, the short, unhappy life of its $765-million loan to Kodak stands out.

It may be remembered that President Trump, with great fanfare, announced the loan on July 28.

Trump said from the White House that the loan would help launch Kodak Pharmaceuticals and pay for Kodak’s entry into the business of producing “critical ingredients” for COVID-19 treatments.

He called it “one of the most important deals in the history of U.S. pharmaceutical industries.”

Well, no. It turned out that the U.S. hadn’t made the loan at all, but only signed a “letter of interest” indicating that it might do so in the future.

Meanwhile, Kodak’s shares soared into the stratosphere. The day before the announcement, the stock was priced at $2.62. The day after the announcement, it reached $60, before falling back to $33.20 at the close. On Thursday, it closed at $10.70.

Meanwhile, top Kodak executives had received large stock option grants, large well-connected investors sold shares into the surge, and one board member donated 3 million shares to a charity he had founded, valuing the gift at the $33.20 price, or roughly $100 million.

With the episode turning into an embarrassment as regulators and members of Congress began examining whether insider trading had gone on, the government agency behind the transaction — the U.S. International Development Finance Corp.—put the whole arrangement on hold on Aug. 7. It’s still on hold.

The outside law firm Kodak’s board hired to investigate the affair, Akin Gump, has just issued its report, which the company has made public.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the report absolves Kodak executives and the big investors of violating insider trading laws, although it recommends that some internal processes be tightened so that nothing like this happens again.

More interestingly, the report takes us step by step through the timeline of the would-be deal. While Kodak and its executives don’t come off looking terrifically well, government officials, including Trump’s trade advisor Peter Navarro, come off looking worse.

Let’s take a stroll through this thicket. Wear your long pants and carry insect repellent.

Kodak, once a powerhouse in the photography and specialty chemicals businesses, was a spavined shadow of its former self by 2019. Although it was a public company, in real terms it was as good as private, as a small circle of investors owned more than 60% of its shares.


Once the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, Executive Chairman and CEO Jim Continenza pressed executives to “brainstorm for opportunities ... in the pandemic response,” the report says.

The company moved into manufacturing isopropyl alcohol for hand sanitizer and polyester film for face shields. It also cold-called government officials, fishing for a grant to allow it to move into pharmaceutical manufacturing.

In April, Kodak ended up in touch with Navarro and Chris Abbott, a White House policy aide. Contacts with Navarro increased after May 14, when Trump issued an executive order authorizing the Development Finance Corp. to make loans to companies in the COVID-19 treatment supply chain.

Kodak initially asked for a $27-million grant. Navarro urged the company to “think bigger” and asked for a “well fleshed out” proposal by the end of May, according to the report. Kodak responded with a request for up to $575 million, which Navarro called “too big,” Kodak employees told Akin Gump.

By June, the plan had morphed into a loan request. At that point, Navarro had apparently backed away from the process — he canceled a scheduled June 4 call with Kodak, and they had no further contact.

At Kodak’s headquarters in Rochester, N.Y., the feeling was that the whole deal was probably dead. But the company pushed ahead with its formal application, presumably in the expectation that lightning might strike.

The talks with the government had been relegated to a low-level government official who didn’t seem to be reading the company’s application submissions. It wasn’t even clear that a loan would be good for Kodak, as it would require that the company raise some money itself as an equity down-payment.

The government official, Alale Allal, then took a tour of Kodak’s manufacturing facilities on June 22. Suddenly and mysteriously, things suddenly got turbo-charged. The Development Finance Corp. said it wanted to issue a “letter of interest” supporting the loan — and wanted to announce it at a public signing ceremony on July 28.

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/ ... covid-loan