Operation Warp Speed
Joe Biden keeps saying there is no plan to roll out the COVID vaccine when, in fact, there is. The Big Red Car writes a letter to Joe to ‘splain the plan.
Capital Thinking • Issue #735 • View online
Dear Joe:
I hope this note finds everything well for you and yours. I keep watching you saying there is no “plan” to inoculate the country with the soon-to-be approved vaccine for COVID.
I thought I would share with you what I have learned doing minimal research on the Internet because, apparently, there is a plan.
I have no Presidential Daily Brief nor do I have any staff to advise me, but I do have a brain and the ability to read, think critically, and to differentiate chicken salad from chicken excrement.
Here is what I have learned:
A Letter To Joe Biden In Regard To Vaccine Distribution
The Musings of the Big Red Car:
1. There is a team overseen by an Army general considered to be crackerjack in the logistics racket — best of breed. His name is Perna, Gustave F Perna.
General Perna, a 4-star general, with three decades of service, is an accomplished chap who has degrees from Valley Forge Military Academy and College, the University of Maryland, and the Florida Institute of Technology (masters in logistics management).
Technically, he is the Chief Operating Officer of Operation Warp Speed and was confirmed by the Senate.
His last assignment was as the Commanding General of the US Army Material Command. He was, prior to that assignment, the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army G4, meaning he was in charge of how the entire Army gets stuff.Old Boy may be the Nation’s top large scale, life-or-death logistician.
2. There are 3,000,000 Americans in nursing homes/long term care facilities who will be the first recipients of the vaccine as soon as the Food and Drug Administration approves the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, both of which are under application awaiting imminent FDA approval under an Emergency Use Authorization.
Fun Fact: Not a single COVID positive patient given the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines during the Phase III trials died after receiving the vaccine. This says something very interesting for our most exposed slice of America.
Bravo!
The quicker we can deploy the vaccine, the quicker the death rate of our most vulnerable demographic will decline. This is where most of the death are.
3. Pfizer, Moderna, and the Army have been hard at it rehearsing the distribution scheme with full dress practice sessions. There are some very technical storage requirements that require precise refrigeration at the distribution centers and these problems are currently under control.
There is a ton of vaccine already deployed in the field awaiting release from the FDA. In much the same way that Operation Warp Speed drove companies to make the vaccine before it was fully tested, Warp Speed has also had the finished vaccine manufactured and deployed before it’s fully approved. That bit of aggressive planning and risk taking is why it has taken only ten months to create a vaccine rather than the more typical 3-5 years. You may want to mention your gratitude to President Trump when you have a moment.
The Orange Man gets credit for putting the boot up the ass of the appropriate bureaucrats, but there is a huge team focused on the distribution logistics. This is a triumph of American medicine, planning, logistics, and balls. Well played.
4. The US government has contracted with both CVS and Walgreens to give the actual inoculations — two per patient some 21-28 days apart. They signed this deal three months ago and had identified CVS/Walgreens more than six months ago.
5. In the case of the nursing homes in America, every nursing home has elected which of CVS or Walgreens will come to their facility and administer the shots.
Some 31,000 nursing homes have selected CVS to provide the shots for them whilst a slightly smaller number, 23,000, have selected Walgreens.
Every one of the initial 3,000,000 nursing home residents is on a shot target team and their home is contracted with either CVS or Walgreens.
CVS and Walgreens are a likely pick as they already have done the same thing — onsite inoculation of the annual flu shot — with these same nursing homes many times — for decades. I
t takes them less than eight weeks to cover the entire nursing home industry for the flu and they indicate they will be much faster on the COVID vaccine.CVS and Walgreens think they can cover the entire nursing home industry — two shots — in 6-8 weeks.
Photo credit: Daniel Schludi on Unsplash