Trump’s Operation Warp Speed made the ‘impossible’ possible

May 15th marks the two-year anniversary of President Donald Trump introducing Operation Warp Speed to the world by announcing that America would have millions of safe and effective vaccines delivered to its people before the end of 2020. 

According to the Commonwealth Foundation’s most recent findings, delivering these vaccines in record time has already prevented over 2 million American deaths. Former members of the president’s Council of Economic Advisors estimated that these vaccines also prevented a loss of trillions of dollars of economic output and millions of jobs.

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U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order on vaccine distribution during an Operation Warp Speed Vaccine Summit at the White House in Washington, U.S., December 8, 2020. REUTERS/Tom Brenner

As a small group of us gathered in the Rose Garden two years ago on that warm, humid spring day, we were appropriately confident of our potential success. We had a president who believed deeply in the innovative spirit and ingenuity of the U.S. private sector. We also had a secretary, Alex Azar, who had spent a decade in the pharmaceutical sector and knew more about its motivations and risk thresholds than any of his predecessors. 

Add to this a four-star general, Gus Perna, whose Army Material Command had been honing its logistical expertise by supporting combat operations in the Middle East for twenty consecutive years. Lastly, we had just recruited two globally-recognized vaccine development and manufacturing experts, Moncef Slaoui and Carlo de Notaristefani, respectively. This was an all-star team.

Beyond the members of this small Warp Speed team, however, lurked serious professions of doubt. That very evening on May 15, 2020, for example, Brian Williams was interviewing Dr. Irwin Redlener, Director of Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness. When referencing President Trump’s declaration earlier that day, he commented: “It is impossible to get that done by the end of the year.” Some may have considered Dr. Redlener’s comments simple political rhetoric, but by historical standards his perspective was well-founded. 

The previous best time in history for bringing a safe and effective vaccine to market was approximately four years in the 1960s. This during a time when we were not in the midst of a global pandemic constraining the availability of the very equipment, raw materials, and labor necessary to develop, manufacture, and distribute the vaccines.