By Jeff Overley

Law360 (September 9, 2020, 10:34 PM EDT) -- In pandemic-related developments Wednesday, President Donald Trump confirmed bombshell reports that he deliberately misrepresented the dangers of the coronavirus, new details emerged about AstraZeneca's vaccine trial stoppage, and public health experts testified on efforts to counter surging mistrust in vaccine safety.

Here are three highlights to know.

COVID-19 Risk Downplayed to Avoid 'Panic,' Trump Says 

Multiple news outlets posted audio recordings Wednesday in which Trump, speaking with journalist Bob Woodward for a book due out next week, described the virus as a mortal airborne threat that he wasn't being candid about publicly to avoid spooking the country.

"You just breathe the air and that's how it's passed. … It's also more deadly than even your strenuous flus," the president said in a Feb. 7 recording released by the Washington Post. "This is more deadly. … This is deadly stuff."

In a March 19 recording posted by CNN, the president cited "startling facts" that indicated "not just old people" were at risk from the virus. He added, "I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic."

During a White House news conference on Wednesday, Trump was asked if he misled the public in order to reduce panic. He replied, "If you said in order to reduce panic, perhaps that's so. The fact is, I'm a cheerleader for this country. I love our country. I don't want people to be frightened."

Trump offered only limited explanations for why tamping down fears would be preferable to accurately describing his understanding of a deadly pathogen that so far has killed more than 190,000 Americans. At one point, the president suggested he had hoped to prevent price-gouging, saying, "We don't want to cause pricing to go up to a level that becomes almost unaffordable."

And when Trump was asked how Americans could trust him going forward on the pandemic, he seemingly suggested that trust is less about telling people the truth and more about telling them what he thinks they should hear.

"That's really a big part of trust. We have to have leadership," Trump said. "The last thing you want to do is create a panic in the country."

Trump has long been accused of recklessly minimizing the dangers of COVID-19 by failing to strongly endorse wearing masks or social distancing, urging a resumption of normal economic activities and predicting that the virus would simply disappear. There has been abundant speculation about the president's motives, including possible indifference to its devastating toll and a simple belief that the benefits of preventing infections aren't worth the massive disruptions to society.

But there was no indication before Wednesday that Trump had recognized the danger in early 2020 and nonetheless made a conscious decision not to be frank with the public.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for president, said during a campaign event in Michigan on Wednesday that Trump "knowingly and willingly lied about the threat [COVID-19] posed to the country for months."

"He failed to do his job on purpose," Biden said. "It was a life-and-death betrayal of the American people."

AstraZeneca Denies Confirming Spinal Cord Condition

Also Wednesday, AstraZeneca PLC supplied new information about the disruption of its coronavirus vaccine trial because of "a potentially unexplained illness" that was announced Tuesday. The U.K.-based drugmaker specifically pushed back against reports that CEO Pascal Soriot had confirmed the illness is a spinal cord condition known as transverse myelitis that has occasionally been linked to vaccinations.

"Reports claiming to be based on comments made earlier [Wednesday] by our CEO stating that we have confirmed that a participant in our clinical trial suffered from transverse myelitis are incorrect," the company said in a statement. "He stated that there is no final diagnosis, and that there will not be one until more tests are carried out." 

AstraZeneca's trial is one of the most advanced studies of a COVID-19 vaccine, and many hopes are riding on its success.

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said during a Senate health committee hearing on Wednesday that the trial's temporary pause "ought to be reassuring" to people concerned about vaccine safety. He characterized the illness as a "single severe adverse event, which may not have anything to do with the vaccine."

But Collins added, "If it turns out that [the illness] is a real consequence of this vaccine … then all the doses that are currently being manufactured for that will be thrown away, because we do not want to issue something that is not safe."

A spokesperson for AstraZeneca had no comment on Collins' remarks.

Senators Prod Experts on Building Vaccine Confidence 

Collins was testifying at the committee alongside U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams at a broader coronavirus hearing that was dubbed, "Vaccines: Saving Lives, Ensuring Confidence and Protecting Public Health."

Much of the roughly 2.5-hour hearing explored a wide array of concerns about the safety of vaccines generally and COVID-19 vaccines specifically. Lawmakers cited medical fears, internet conspiracy theories and polls that have recently found significant levels of doubt that COVID-19 vaccine authorizations won't be rushed for political reasons.

With respect to the first two categories, Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., asked Adams and Collins to identify the "most outrageous" misconceptions about vaccines.

Adams replied that "vaccines do not cause autism." Collins replied that "the craziest one I've heard ... is this is all designed by [Microsoft Corp. founder] Bill Gates, and when you get the vaccine, it has a chip in it that's going to get stuck into your system and it's going to watch everything you're doing."

The surgeon general also said Wednesday that relatively few parents have reservations about vaccines, and that those who do are more accurately described not as "anti-vax" but rather "vaccine hesitant."

It's important that experts be "patient with them to answer their questions," Adams said. He added that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is working with social media giants Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest to ensure "appropriate and accurate information is displayed prominently when people do a search" for vaccines.

With respect to political interference, multiple Democratic senators observed that Trump has baselessly accused the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of slow-walking vaccine trials to harm his reelection chances.

As one example, the president on Aug. 22 tweeted, "The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd," the date of the presidential election.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who caucuses with Democrats, asked Collins and Adams at the hearing if they would join him "in telling the president of the United States to get out of science and let the scientists do their job in moving as rapidly as possible in getting a safe vaccine out to the American people."

Collins replied, "Science, and science alone, will be the way in which this decision is made. Otherwise, I'll have no part of it."

Adams replied, "There will be no shortcuts. This vaccine will be safe."

The Senate health committee has scheduled another COVID-19 hearing for Sept. 23. The expected witnesses are FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir and Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert.

--Editing by Jill Coffey.

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