Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Trump's 'Operation Warp Speed' Aims To Accelerate Vaccine Development Against Advisers' Warnings
The New York Times: Trump Seeks Push To Speed Coronavirus Vaccine, Despite Safety Concerns
President Trump is pressing his health officials to pursue a crash development program for a coronavirus vaccine that could be widely distributed by the beginning of next year, despite widespread skepticism that such an effort could succeed and considerable concern about the implications for safety. The White House has made no public announcement of the new effort, called Operation Warp Speed, and some officials are apparently trying to talk the president down, telling him that it would be more harmful to set an unreasonably short deadline that might result in a faulty vaccine than to wait for one that is proved safe and effective. (Sanger, 4/29)
Bloomberg: Trump Coronavirus Vaccine: 'Operation Warp Speed' Project News
Called “Operation Warp Speed,” the program will pull together private pharmaceutical companies, government agencies and the military to try to cut the development time for a vaccine by as much as eight months, according to two people familiar with the matter. As part of the arrangement, taxpayers will shoulder much of the financial risk that vaccine candidates may fail, instead of drug companies. The project’s goal is to have 300 million doses of vaccine available by January, according to one administration official. There is no precedent for such rapid development of a vaccine. (Jacobs and Armstrong, 4/29)
The Hill: Fauci: Hundreds Of Millions Of Coronavirus Vaccine Doses May Be Ready By January
Anthony Fauci said Thursday that it is possible that hundreds of millions of doses of a coronavirus vaccine could be ready by January, as the Trump administration seeks to speed vaccine development. Asked by NBC’s Savannah Guthrie whether it is “in the realm of possibility” for hundreds of millions of vaccine doses to be ready by January, as the administration’s new “Operation Warp Speed” program envisions, Fauci said, “I do.” (Sullivan, 4/30)
In other vaccine news —
Roll Call: US, China Absent From International Vaccine Effort
In laboratories around the world, hundreds of scientists are racing to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus and end the pandemic that has brought global commerce, travel and much of everyday life to a screeching halt. But while the eyes of private business, civil society and the news media are fixated on which vaccine candidates look the most promising and how soon a cure could be available for widespread use, comparatively less attention is being paid to the toxic chain of events that could unfold internationally once a vaccine is ready and national governments compete over access to it. (Oswald, 4/29)
The Hill: Pfizer Says Coronavirus Vaccine Could Be Ready For Emergency Use By Fall
Pfizer and German pharmaceutical company BioNTech have developed a coronavirus vaccine that could be ready for emergency use as early as September, Pfizer’s CEO told The Wall Street Journal Tuesday. The two pharmaceutical firms said Wednesday they began human trials of the potential vaccine, BNT162, on April 23 in Germany. Twelve participants were given the vaccine and data on the trial is expected as early as June, according to Business Insider. (Guzman, 4/29)
