A month after President Trump announced Operation Warp Speed, administration officials are offering no guarantees the project will meet its goal of 300 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine by January.
A month after President Trump announced Operation Warp Speed, administration officials are offering no guarantees that the project will meet its goal of producing 300 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine by January.
Previously, Trump administration officials have sounded sure that they would have 300 million doses ready by January. “I’m confident that we will be able to deliver a vaccine at scale in time,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said May 28. Rather than fixate on the Jan. 1 deadline, the Warp Speed “aspiration” is now that “by the height of flu season next year we have enough vaccines and we have vaccinated those who are vulnerable — and desire a vaccine — to protect as much life as possible,” the first official said. “We’re confident that we will hit that objective.”
As an example, the first official said, “we expect to be producing large quantities of vaccines while the clinical trials are still underway, so that when safety and efficacy have been demonstrated, there isn’t a day’s delay due to manufacturing ramp-up timelines.” The reason drug companies typically don’t do this is that “it involves significant financial risk,” the official said. Under Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. government is assuming that risk, he added.
Meanwhile, in discussions with Operation Warp Speed officials, insurers have expressed “an eagerness to cover this vaccine as most if not all of them have covered other COVID-related services — without copay,” he added. Not everyone will be getting the vaccine, according to the first senior administration official. “For many reasons, we don’t expect to have all Americans vaccinated,” he said.
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