Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, praised the Trump administration for its effort in delivering the COVID-19 vaccine through Operation Warp Speed.
Collins, the boss of White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci, said the public-private partnership championed by health officials within the Trump administration was able to develop a vaccine with “breathtaking” speed.
“The Operation Warp Speed, for which I give a great deal of credit to [former Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar], was an effort that many of us were not initially convinced was going to be necessary. And it was thought about as a Manhattan Project,” Collins said.
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Collins singled out Dr. Moncef Slaoui, chief adviser of Operation Warp Speed, for acclaim.
“That effort and the recruitment of Dr. Moncef Slaoui was an incredibly important step forward that the administration deserves credit for because that did motivate a lot of actions, a lot of coordination,” he said.
Operation Warp Speed, an initiative of former President Donald Trump’s White House to develop, manufacture, and distribute COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics, was launched last May as part of the Trump administration’s goal of achieving 300 million vaccines by January of 2021. Currently, two vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna, are approved for use by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a quick turnaround for a vaccine, given the traditional timeline of five to 10 years.
While Moderna and AstraZeneca took federal funding to help manufacture and develop their vaccines, Pfizer did not. The New York-based pharmaceutical company did, however, accept a $1.95 million deal with Operation Warp Speed, but it was not to be paid until the company delivered the vaccines, according to the New York Times.
Pfizer has distanced itself from Operation Warp Speed, at one time saying it was not affiliated with the effort but later clarifying that it is part of the initiative by being a supplier of a potential vaccine.
While still a candidate, President Biden and his then running mate Kamala Harris expressed skepticism that a vaccine could be safe for general use so soon.
“My guess is [that Trump] is going to announce a vaccine. He’s going to say it’s going to be available around Election Day. He’s going to hype it,” Biden told donors during a Sept. 4 fundraiser.
Harris echoed Biden’s concerns of political expediency, saying that Trump was “looking at an election coming up in less than 60 days, and he’s grasping to get whatever he can to pretend he has been a leader on this issue when he is not.”
Since Biden took office, he has touted his campaign promise of getting 100 million vaccines distributed in his first 100 days in office. In recent days, he has pitched a higher goal, wanting to vaccinate all eligible adults by the end of the summer.
The CDC reported that more than 63 million doses have been administered nationwide since vaccine distribution began in mid-December, reaching more than 13% of the population. Currently, about 2 million shots are being distributed per day.
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The coronavirus has infected more than 28 million people in the United States and caused nearly 500,000 deaths attributed to the virus, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracker.
Representatives from the NIH did not immediately reply to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
