FDA slammed for ‘Operation Turtle Speed’ delay in approving Covid vaccine as one American dies every 30 seconds
THE Food and Drug Administration's delay in approving the Covid-19 vaccine has been slammed by a Johns Hopkins professor — who dubbed it "Operation Turtle Speed."
The expert claimed bureaucratic regulators lack "urgency" and said they could green light the jab within 48 hours if they "work harder".
Yesterday set a new record with 101,276 hospitalizations across the US, and was the third deadliest day of the pandemic with another 2,607 fatalities.
And an alarming projection by University of Washington's IHME says the death toll could double to 540,000 by April.
On Wednesday the UK became the first country in the world to approve Pfizer's new coronavirus vaccine — but the FDA says it still needs to assess the data and will not even meet to discuss it until December 10.
The professor went on: "FDA regulators are wasting precious time in greenlighting a Covid vaccine as more than 2,000 Americans are dying each day and the pandemic continues to starve American society.
He was forced to issue a groveling apology as he was accused of trying to deflect criticism of the FDA's snail-pace response by comparison.
Dr Fauci told CNN: "We have a number of conflating events occurring. We have the surge that we know has gone on before the Thanksgiving holiday — that very steep inflection of cases that has led to the record numbers.
"That may peak two to three weeks from now, and they will cusp at the Christmas holiday. We are really very concerned."
It came after startling figures showed there were 11,820 coronavirus deaths in the past week — overtaking heart disease for the first time.
One American is now dying from the virus every 30 seconds.
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Meanwhile some amid an escalating crisis in the state as ICU units run out of beds.
The US now has 14.1 million confirmed cases of coronavirus and more than 276,000 deaths.