Despite all the doom and gloom, handwringing experts, and predictions of calamity over Wuhan coronavirus, things could have been much worse if not for the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed.
A new report released by the National Institutes of Health found that the vaccines developed, manufactured, and distributed through Operation Warp Speed saved nearly 140,000 American lives through May of 2021.
Research Matters: Vaccines prevented up to 140,000 COVID-19 deaths in U.S. https://t.co/k1jhHg8jDy
— NIH (@NIH) August 24, 2021
As the report explains, researchers found that "COVID-19 vaccines prevented more than 139,000 deaths during the first five months they were available." While projections suggested about 709,000 Americans would die with the Wuhan coronavirus through early May, the actual number was around 570,000. In addition to the innate value of human lives saved, the study "estimated that the economic value of preventing these deaths was between $625 billion and $1.4 trillion."
The lives and money saved are all thanks to Operation Warp Speed, President Trump and his administration's record-breaking campaign to defy existing time frames for vaccine development and get shots in arms before anyone thought possible.
Announced on May 15, Operation Warp Speed was a bold public-private partnership, a "massive scientific, industrial, and logistical endeavor unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project," President Trump explained. "It's objective is to develop and then to manufacture and distribute a proven coronavirus vaccine as fast as possible" with the goal of finishing "prior to the end of the year."
Operation Warp Speed is "a massive scientific, industrial, and logistical endeavor unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project." pic.twitter.com/dkfU3vPnnA
— The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) May 15, 2020
"While we accelerate the final phases of vaccine trials, Operation Warp Speed will be simultaneously accelerating its manufacturing and manufacturing process," said Trump. "Our task is so urgent, that under Operation Warp Speed, the federal government will invest in manufacturing all of the top vaccine candidates before they're approved so we're knowing exactly what we're doing, before they're approved."
Democrats and liberal media doubted the goal of having a vaccine in use by the end of 2020 from the word go. Getting a vaccine created, manufactured, and distributed in a matter of months had never been done before. Until President Trump's Operation Warp Speed, that is.
The result of Operation Warp Speed was the development of vaccines to fight the Wuhan coronavirus five times faster than any other vaccine in history. By December of 2020, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were granted emergency use authorization (EUA) and administration began. A third vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson received emergency authorization in February of 2021.
Those who chose to get vaccinated were able to do so — thanks to President Trump's decision to throw conventional wisdom out the window and ignore the naysayers. As a result, some 140,000 Americans' lives were spared along with a savings of around $1 trillion.
All because of President Trump and his administration's Operation Warp Speed.