The Financial Times says President Donald Trump's Operation Warp Speed is responsible for the coronavirus vaccines becoming available so soon.
In an article posted Thursday, the Times noted the "vaccine push is now hailed as the bright spot in the Trump administration's COVID-19 response, as products from Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna, and AstraZeneca and Oxford University move closer to approval."
The key achievement of Operation Warp Speed had been speeding up investment in manufacturing, Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Columbia University School of Public Health, told the Times.
"Normally, that would be a huge investment for a vaccine manufacturer to make, and potentially be a huge loss for them if they developed a vaccine that never went on to the market," she said.
The program is led by Moncef Slaoui, who feels early critics of the program have now been shown to be wrong.
"The easy answer for experts was to say it was impossible and find reasons why the operation would never work," he told the Times.
Meanwhile, he told Politico he may soon step down from the program but insisted it had nothing to do with presidential politics.
"I do not want my departure from the role to have anything to do with the new administration," said Slaoui, a registered Democrat. "I have more affinity for the new administration than the current one.
"This doesn't have to be black and white. I can continue to be available as needed."
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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