Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on the blockbuster COVID-19 vaccine news
09 November 2020
Pfizer on Monday announced that its COVID-19 vaccine has proven effective in over 90% of previously uninfected people, and added that it could have 50 million doses available by year-end.
Axios Re:Cap talks to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla about vaccine data, distribution, politics, and how he reacted upon receiving the news.
Highlights:
- Pfizer expects to release safety data next week.
- It plans to let public health officials, in the U.S. and other countries, determine who receives initial doses.
- Once Phase 3 trials are completed and analyzed, Pfizer will release its data for peer-reviewed publication.
- Pfizer did not accept government money for development, in order to better "liberate our scientists" and to "keep Pfizer out of politics."
- Pfizer's independent vaccine advisory committee began receiving data last Thursday or Friday, and met Sunday at 11am. Bourla was informed of the results around 2pm, and says that had the data been available before the election, he would have released it before the election.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.