On April 27, 2020, in the throes of coronavirus-induced shutdowns across the globe, the Wall Street Journal ran a little-remarked piece titled “The Secret Group of Scientists and Billionaires Pushing a Manhattan Project for Covid-19: They are working to cull the world’s most promising research on the pandemic, passing on their findings to policy makers and the White House.” The article went into detail on how a cadre of scientists and billionaire benefactors was working to pull together an otherwise disparate research race for coronavirus cures and vaccines, emphasizing the need for “a Manhattan Project-style” effort to combat the growing pandemic. Two days later, Bloomberg News reported that the Trump administration was already working on making this project a reality, and on May 15, Operation Warp Speed was born.

Upon the announcement of its inception, the Trump administration aimed “to have substantial quantities of a safe and effective vaccine available for Americans by January 2021.” At the time of this writing, two vaccines have been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use, 36 million doses have been distributed, and more than 16 million shots have already been administered in the weeks since the effort began.