Detroit Fauci

The mayor of Detroit has turned down an allocation of the J&J vaccine.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan declined an initial allocation of the newly authorized Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine….”So, Johnson & Johnson is a very good vaccine. Moderna and Pfizer are the best. And I am going to do everything I can to make sure the residents of the city of Detroit get the best,” Duggan said during a news conference Thursday.

Sigh. What an error. Note, however, that the Detroit Mayor rejecting the J&J vaccine is exactly what the FDA has done with the AstraZeneca vaccine. Moreover none other than Anthony Fauci made exactly the same argument about AstraZeneca (an argument I criticized at the time):

But even if the vaccine ends up being approved, it will probably only have an efficacy of 60 to 70 percent. “What are you going to do with the 70 percent when you’ve got two (vaccines) that are 95 percent? Who are you going to give a vaccine like that to?” Anthony Fauci, the leading American expert on vaccines, recently wondered.

To be clear, I don’t blame Fauci for the actions of Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan. Duggan would probably have said the same had Fauci never made his error. Indeed, perhaps you might even read this as excusing Duggan (if even Fauci, “the leading American expert on vaccines”, could make this error then…).

Still, Fauci’s error has been much more costly for the United States.

Hat tip: JF.