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BloombergBusinessweek November 2, 2020vaccines. Just after he was released from the hospital for
his own case of Covid, Trump attacked Hahn by tweet: “Just
another political hit job! @SteveFDA.”
The president’s single tangible, constructive contribution
to the pandemic response has been to bless the establish-
ment of OWS. Denying the virus was a real threat for months,
Trump failed to come up with a national strategy to control its
spread and left it to the states to respond. Then he endorsed
a company-driven approach. Mango says there are now more
than 25 manufacturing sites producing or gearing up to make
vaccines, vials, and other things necessary for a mass vaccina-
tion program, with OWS tracking progress through streams
of spreadsheets.
It appears to be a conspicuous exception to the other-
wise disastrous management of the pandemic. “The only part
of the pandemic Trump responded to was things he could
get companies to manufacture,” says Peter Hotez, dean for
the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College
of Medicine in Houston. “There was never an understand-
ing that the hard part is giving adequate time to make sure
the vaccines work. It was always reframed as a manufactur-
ing problem. It was Trump bringing in his personal relation-
ship with CEOs to get them to make stuff.”Calling the search for a vaccine Operation Warp Speed
hasn’t always engendered confidence. The name comes from
Star Trek, and Trekkies know that when a spaceship travels
at a high warp factor, things can go wrong. More to the point,
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases (Niaid), has expressed concern that
the name suggests recklessness. No one is cutting corners,
Fauci insists. Perception issues aside, the idea behind OWS
makes sense. A top-notch vaccine specialist from the private
sector, former GlaxoSmithKline Plc executive Moncef Slaoui,
is paired with military logistics expert Gustave Perna, a four-
star general who led the U.S. Army Materiel Command and is
now the OWS chief operating officer. They are a study in con-
trasts: On a recent visit to a Cincinnati hospital taking part in
a vaccine trial, Perna was in camouflage fatigues while Slaoui
wore a blue button-down shirt.
Guided by Slaoui, a Moroccan-born Belgian-American
scientist, OWS selected a portfolio of coronavirus vaccine
candidates being developed by some of the world’s top phar-
maceutical companies, as well as some untested
newcomers. By betting on several horses, OWS
in theory increased the chances that one or more
would cross the finish line, hopefully at a warp-
like speed. Slaoui steered investments not just to
different companies but also to different ways of
making vaccines. Moderna Inc. and Pfizer, which
has teamed up with Germany’s BioNTech SE,
are testing vaccines that use messenger RNA, a
genetic material that instructs the body to make
viral proteins that in turn trigger an antibody
response—in this case against SARS-CoV-2, thevirusthatcausesCovid.J&JandAstraZenecaareusinga viral
vectortechnologythatdeploysanalteredcommoncoldvirus
tocarrythegeneticmaterialofthecoronavirus and produce
an immune response. The Novavax vaccine and one from
Glaxo and France’s Sanofi SA are based on the virus’s spike
proteinanduseanimmune-boostingadjuvanttosparkanti-
bodyproduction.Pfizermightbefirstoutofthegate;the
companyhassaidit couldbereadytoapplyforauthorization
by late November. Unlike the others, the company chose to
pay for its own testing and production and will recoup some
of its investment only when its vaccine gets authorized and
OWS buys the shots.
Being new to government may actually be to Slaoui’s advan-
tage. “Everybody is party to a given kingdom,” he says. “Having
somebody from the outside come in that’s effectively blind to
all the history and politics, the bureaucracy that may exist,
and is uniquely focused on integrating their work ... was an
essential element of how Warp Speed was able to go very fast.”
OWS released a document in mid-September outlining how
it would distribute vaccine doses. It has a military tone; the title
is From the Factory to the Frontlines. General Paul Ostrowski,
Perna’s deputy, has said the goal is to begin delivery within
24 hours of any approval or emergency use authorization,
with distribution centralized and farmed out mainly through
McKesson Corp., a Texas drug distributor that had an existing
contract with the CDC to deliver vaccines. To track where every
dose goes, OWS is building an integrated computer system that
brings in the CDC’s existing systems. OWS says it expects to
have as many as 75,000 injection sites across the country. States
have sent the CDC proposals for how to manage distribution
locally, but in mid-October the bipartisan National Governors
Association submitted a long list of questions to the Trump
administration about everything from funding to storage, mak-
ing it clear the states don’t see a workable federal plan in place.
Some observers have questioned how a victory for Joe
Biden might affect the course of the program. According to
Mango, the point is largely moot. The U.S. is on track to pro-
duce more than 100 million doses of coronavirus vaccines,
manufactured by multiple companies, by the end of the year,
he says, and by Inauguration Day, “the vast, vast majority of
the heavy lifting will be behind us.” The Biden campaign says
it will back scientists involved with Warp Speed. “Joe Biden
and Kamala Harris will provide the leadership that has been
lacking under Trump to empower scientific
professionals throughout our government—
including those involved in Warp Speed—to
ensure that a safe and effective vaccine is dis-
tributed equitably, efficiently, and free to all
Americans,” spokesman Andrew Bates said.
Mango says more than 600 million shots
should be available by April 2021. Behind those
big numbers are a lot of variables and uncer-
tainties. Five of the six OWS-backed vaccine
candidates require two doses. It’s possible
the FDA will not approve all of them, which
▲ Perna