With the parade of dates for which the Trump administration plans to see a COVID-19 vaccine (October 2020, November 2020 or until the end of this year, or until January 2021, or later in 2021), you can be forgiven for experimenting with it.
It would possibly be helpful to take a look at the specific figures and projections that Operation Warp Speed has advanced on the vaccine schedule.
First, the specific numbers.
Of the 3 vaccines found lately in Phase III, Moderna started the first, with the progression of the birth of its vaccine in mid-January 2020, according to the company, so let’s use this date as a point of birth.
Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s effort to drive vaccine development, aims to reduce overall time to create and verify a vaccine, which takes an average of 73 months.
According to a presentation by the Defense branch, which attached below, Operation Warp Speed reduced this time to 14 months, partly due to increased investment and partly through steps such as testing the vaccine itself and verifying vaccine production procedures simultaneously, than one after the other.
So where do they leave us for 14 months? According to the earliest start date, Moderna’s effort in January 2020, which sets the earliest date for a vaccine in March 2021.If you remember, Dr. Fauci’s initial assessment in March 2020 that ‘a one-year-to-one-year vaccine and a far-flur part at this point.
The strange thing about the previous slide, however, is that the 14-month calendar conflicts with the stated mission, on the same slide: “deliver three hundred million doses of an effective vaccine until January 1, 2021”.
To carry out this project according to the established schedule, the progression began in November 2019, when the first case was confirmed, after the virus made the zoonotic leap from bat to man.
It’s hard to locate the same inconsistency elsewhere. Take this video that parliamentary minority leader Kevin McCarthy released on Wednesday.
Despite all its many flaws, the announcement, as it should be, states that Operation Warp Speed needs the following result: “A procedure that regularly takes 8 to 10 years will now likely take 12 to 18 months.”
But even then, the maximum positive schedule would leave a vaccine approved in January 2021.
None of this, however, is in line with what President Trump wants.
“Before the end of the year, it may be much sooner,” he told Geraldo Rivera last month, adding that he would like to see a vaccine “out there” on Election Day.
Or, as CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said, in a letter to states last week, they make sure that all vaccine distribution services are “fully operational until November 1, 2020.”