Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day two d
Speaker 1: and thirty three since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic.
Speaker 1: Today's main story the White House is most visible and
Speaker 1: coordinated response to the pandemic has been Operation Warp Speed,
Speaker 1: the project to fast track vaccine development. Whether Trump wins
Speaker 1: or loses on election day, the program could be our
Speaker 1: best chance to get free from this outbreak if he
Speaker 1: stays out of the way. But first, here's what happened
Speaker 1: in virus News today. Supporters of President Trump chanted fire
Speaker 1: Fauci at the president's campaign rally Sunday night. The President
Speaker 1: made comments hinting he would fire Fauci, the director of
Speaker 1: a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, after the election.
Speaker 1: It's the latest attack on Fauci from the Trump white House,
Speaker 1: who criticized him on Sunday after Faucci warned in a
Speaker 1: Washington Post interview that the country was heading for a
Speaker 1: drawn out period of illness and death. Daily cases in
Speaker 1: the US are surging as Tuesday's election approaches. The current
Speaker 1: wave of cases is bigger than the one scene in
Speaker 1: the spring. Goldman, Sachs and Deutsche Bank were among the
Speaker 1: companies that told UK staff that all but essential employees
Speaker 1: should work from home. England's nationwide lockdown will legally expire
Speaker 1: on December two, but the government says it will look
Speaker 1: at a range of indicators before easing restrictions. Large swaths
Speaker 1: of Europe are also entering lockdown this week. Finally, a
Speaker 1: coronavirus vaccine under development from cure vac NV showed a
Speaker 1: good immune response in early trials, validating the biotech company's
Speaker 1: research into messenger RNA's ability to train the body's defenses.
Speaker 1: The most promising vaccine dose produced an immune response comparable
Speaker 1: to that found and recovered patients in an early stage test,
Speaker 1: according to the German company. And now for today's main story,
Speaker 1: Operation warp Speed, the White House's effort to fast track
Speaker 1: of vaccine for COVID nineteen appears to be the conspicuous
Speaker 1: exception to the government's otherwise disastrous management of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: The project has cleared bureaucratic hurdles and awarded more than
Speaker 1: twelve billion dollars in vaccine related contracts, and has an
Speaker 1: overall budget of as much as eighteen billion dollars. I
Speaker 1: spoke with reporter Cynthia Coons, who wrote in Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week about what Operation Warp Speed is doing behind the scenes. So,
Speaker 1: Operation Warp Speed formally described as a public private partnership,
Speaker 1: but I was hoping you might just unpack this a little.
Speaker 1: What is it exactly and how is it structured. Operation
Speaker 1: Warp Speed is a combination of a number of different
Speaker 1: government agencies that have come together, predominantly h h S,
Speaker 1: the Health and Human Services Division of the Administration, and
Speaker 1: the Department of Defense. So I think one of the
Speaker 1: more interesting things we've uncovered in our reporting is just
Speaker 1: how heavily involved the military is in the entire operation.
Speaker 1: So it's basically a coming together of a variety of
Speaker 1: different parts of the government that might typically be involved
Speaker 1: in pandemic planning, but not necessarily in the sway. The
Speaker 1: US government doesn't typically help build supply chains for vaccines
Speaker 1: from scratch, but there's some expertise there within the government
Speaker 1: that comes from the from the military that Operation Warp
Speaker 1: Speed is drawing on to make this vaccine possible should
Speaker 1: any of these vaccine candidates prove successful in combat and coronavirus. Now,
Speaker 1: there have been many accusations that the Trump administration has
Speaker 1: mismanaged the pandemic, perhaps with the exception being Operation Warp Speed.
Speaker 1: And what, in your opinion do you think has led
Speaker 1: to this, what has made this program work well? One
Speaker 1: person said to me, which really stuck with me, was
Speaker 1: that Warp Speed really plays to Trump's strengths that he
Speaker 1: likes to manufacture things, that he likes to leverage his
Speaker 1: relationships within the business world, and that's where Operation Warp
Speaker 1: Speed really comes together. So well, it's definitely a conglomerate
Speaker 1: of different entities of the US government. The active and
Speaker 1: the actual execution here is coming from the companies themselves,
Speaker 1: and so the government has given out billions and billions
Speaker 1: of dollars of contracts to these companies, Companies like Maderna,
Speaker 1: companies like Astra, Zeneca, J and J. They're large companies
Speaker 1: that are recipients of Operation Warp Speed money that they're
Speaker 1: using to help offset the costs of these very expensive,
Speaker 1: large trials that they need to do to prove the
Speaker 1: vaccine is safe. So so in some sense that part
Speaker 1: of it plays to Trump's strengths, and another another part
Speaker 1: of it is very very good people have been appointed
Speaker 1: to the extent that months of SLOUGHI, who is a
Speaker 1: vaccine executive at Glaxo Smith client who spent years working
Speaker 1: on vaccines for public health crises, is running this operation.
Speaker 1: Having his expertise someone like him has been really pivotal.
Speaker 1: And there are also very high level people within the
Speaker 1: military who have done a lot of logistics and operational
Speaker 1: support in major endeavors in the past. And so this
Speaker 1: combination of bringing in top talent in some of these
Speaker 1: very niche areas and this idea that Trump really liked,
Speaker 1: this company driven a approach made Operation work Speed that's
Speaker 1: very unique, somewhat potentially positive outlier in the broader federal
Speaker 1: government response to COVID. And so let's get into perhaps
Speaker 1: the most public element right now of Operation Warp Speed,
Speaker 1: that is with vaccine development. How exactly has Operation Warp
Speaker 1: Speed been involved with choosing and of course supporting some
Speaker 1: of the various coronavirus vaccine candidates. One of the principal
Speaker 1: things Operation Warp Speed has done has given They've given
Speaker 1: a lot of money to big companies to support big,
Speaker 1: large scale trials, and you see some of the companies
Speaker 1: doing six phase three trials. So the government has given
Speaker 1: away a decent amount of money in that regard. The
Speaker 1: other really interesting thing that we came upon was the
Speaker 1: amount of work the government had been doing to really
Speaker 1: help build the supply chain, so they have these They've
Speaker 1: used the Defense Production Act much more so than we
Speaker 1: initially realized, and and the way it works. As a company.
Speaker 1: We talked to one small supplier of a type of
Speaker 1: vial who said they had a power outage at their
Speaker 1: supplier in Chicago in the middle of the summer and
Speaker 1: they didn't know how much that was going to slow
Speaker 1: them down, and so they brought this letter to the
Speaker 1: head of legal affairs at the energy company who turned
Speaker 1: the lights on. That was it. They just prioritize that
Speaker 1: plan so that the work could get done to get
Speaker 1: the vials produced to continue to the supply chain that
Speaker 1: underpins the production of a vaccine would be up and running.
Speaker 1: So it's been very interesting. I've been told that the
Speaker 1: Army Corps of Engineers comes in and gets involved when needed.
Speaker 1: They connects thedite permits. UH. The one of the main
Speaker 1: companies we focused on was Emergent because their contract manufacturer
Speaker 1: and they're working with J and J Astra and they've
Speaker 1: worked with Novavax so that's a big component of the
Speaker 1: whole Warp Speed production capacity. It's it's half of the
Speaker 1: known companies right now that are working on vaccines are
Speaker 1: working with Emergent and so in emergence case, they had
Speaker 1: prop pieces uh supply um parts duck in Sweden and
Speaker 1: basically the government got involved and lo and behold they
Speaker 1: were able to expedite supply items that might not have
Speaker 1: arrived until November December, and they got them in August.
Speaker 1: So they're making vaccines right now. Whether or not we
Speaker 1: end up getting those vaccines are going to depend on
Speaker 1: the science, but the government's very much backing the production
Speaker 1: of vaccines so that the supply is there. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a big bet on at least being ready. If
Speaker 1: one of these vaccines is successful. What happens in terms
Speaker 1: of distribution. How will Operation warp Speed be involved with
Speaker 1: if a vaccine is approved distributing it throughout the US.
Speaker 1: Operation warp Speed is saying right now they are ready
Speaker 1: so that a vaccine can start to be distributed within
Speaker 1: twenty four hours of approval, which is quite rapid. They're
Speaker 1: working with McKesson and some large pharmacy chains in order
Speaker 1: to make sure that's possible. They're going to be tracking
Speaker 1: as far as I understand the dosage so that people
Speaker 1: are notified. Any of these vaccines are two dose, so
Speaker 1: they're going to be notifying people if they need to
Speaker 1: get their second dose of a given vaccine. They have
Speaker 1: a legacy computer system from the c d C that
Speaker 1: they're upgrading to make this sort of technology and tracking possible.
Speaker 1: They're building the systems to be able to track utilization
Speaker 1: and DOSA, be able to remind people if they need
Speaker 1: to get a second dose. And they're very much focused.
Speaker 1: They've been very public about this idea that they want
Speaker 1: to make sure they reach all Americans, so they're going
Speaker 1: to remote parts. They're trying to build the infrastructure so
Speaker 1: that people in remote parts of the US, in maybe
Speaker 1: rural America or islands, etcetera, are also able to get
Speaker 1: the vaccine. There are no way focused on only making
Speaker 1: this possible and the major metro centers where medical care
Speaker 1: is obviously more abundant. So I'd say that's it also
Speaker 1: been quite interesting to see how much attention has been
Speaker 1: paid to that next leg of the journey. Of course,
Speaker 1: we're we're looking at a week of a presidential election,
Speaker 1: and and we may have a new administration um starting,
Speaker 1: So how might the outcome of the elected effect Operation
Speaker 1: Warp Speed. How might a Biden administration otherwise affect the
Speaker 1: course of the program. So your question about distribution really
Speaker 1: hits on this because my understanding is that the bulk
Speaker 1: of Operation Warp Speeds work, at least from the perspective
Speaker 1: of them, getting the supply chain built up is going
Speaker 1: to be done by January, where we to have a
Speaker 1: new president inaugurated at that point. Uh, the next job
Speaker 1: really after that is going to be disseminating this. I
Speaker 1: don't think any of these vaccines are likely to be
Speaker 1: rolling out until so it is really going to fall
Speaker 1: to the Biden administration if he were to succeed in
Speaker 1: the election. This week. He has said to us through
Speaker 1: a spokesman that a Biden administration be fully committed to
Speaker 1: Operation Warp Speed. And I'm sure that the Trump administration
Speaker 1: would be fully committed to Warp Speed to given that's
Speaker 1: been there. This whole thing has come together under the
Speaker 1: Trump administration. So really, I think the question of distribution
Speaker 1: is is going to be what's left the piece of this.
Speaker 1: I think either administration is going to be dedicated to
Speaker 1: that piece of it. But definitely there could be some turmoil.
Speaker 1: There could be high level departures and different people are
Speaker 1: going to have to take over and take up the helm.
Speaker 1: But I could see that being the only disruption is,
Speaker 1: you know, any personnel turnover, if anyone were to leave,
Speaker 1: if there's a different outcome where Biden wins the election.
Speaker 1: That was Cynthia Coons and that's it for our show today.
Speaker 1: For coverage of the outbreak from one bureaus around the world,
Speaker 1: visit Bloomberg dot com slash coronavirus and if you like
Speaker 1: the show, please leave us a review and a rating
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Speaker 1: help more listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily
Speaker 1: edition is produced by Top four heads Jordan Gospore, Magnus
Speaker 1: Hendrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported
Speaker 1: by Cynthia Coons. Original music by Leo Sidrin. Our editors
Speaker 1: are Francesco Levi and Rick Shine. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's
Speaker 1: head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.