Operation Warp Speed, Industrial Policy, and the Truth | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the John Locke Foundation. The author of this post is Mitch Kokai.

    Scott Lincicome writes at National Review Online to dispel myths involving Operation Warp Speed.

  • As President Biden picks up the "industrial policy" baton from Donald Trump, it has become accepted wisdom that "Operation Warp Speed" (OWS) shows how such policy can surmount "market failures" to achieve major national objectives. The Biden administration's new report on "critical supply chains," for example, uses OWS to justify its industrial-policy proposals, and in doing so links to work calling OWS "a triumph and validation of industrial policy." And Senator Marco Rubio echoed this conclusion a few weeks earlier, when he claimed on Twitter that "the free market would have eventually developed a vaccine, but we would all still be wearing masks without Operation Warp Speed."
  • This potted, bipartisan history, however, omits crucial facts that turn OWS from a clear "industrial-policy success" to, at best, a useful complement to incredible private-sector efforts and, at worst, a cautionary tale of how industrial policy can impede such efforts.
  • To be clear, OWS undoubtedly subsidized the production of several successful COVID-19 vaccines in a remarkably short period of time. But those claiming OWS drove that success must contend with several uncomfortable facts.
  • First of all, the BioNTech/Pfizer shot - the first vaccine to market and the most successful - was created and produced outside of OWS. BioNTech is a German company, and it had been working on mRNA vaccines for years when it announced its partnership with Pfizer in March 2020, two months before OWS got off the ground. In April 2020, still one month before OWS began, Pfizer's management predicted that it would distribute millions of finished doses by the end of the year. ...
  • ... Pfizer and BioNTech also refused government funding for initial R&D, testing, and production support out of fear that it would politicize or delay their work. Instead, they leveraged Pfizer's resources, multinational research teams, global capital markets and supply chains, and a logistics-and-transportation infrastructure developed over decades.

Go Back


Leave a Guest Comment

Your Name or Alias
Your Email Address ( your email address will not be published)
Enter Your Comment ( no code or urls allowed, text only please )



Comment

( August 27th, 2021 @ 7:23 pm )
 
None of the "vaccines" are safe.....period. Why would people take something and not know what's in it? Operation Warp Speed has nothing to do with you think it does.


People need to wake up!



Democrats’ N.C. Supreme Court majority on the line with two seats up in ’22 John Locke Foundation Guest Editorial, Editorials, Op-Ed & Politics Bladen Journal Takes the Dufresne Refrain to COVID


HbAD0

Latest Op-Ed & Politics

populist / nationalist anti-immigration AfD most popular party among young voters, CDU second
Barr had previously said he would jump off a bridge before supporting Trump
illegal alien "asylum seeker" migrants are a crime wave on both sides of the Atlantic

HbAD1

Decision is a win for election integrity. NC should do the same.
Biden regime intends to force public school compliance as well as colleges
prosecutors appeal acquittal of member of parliament in lower court for posting Bible verse
Biden abuses power to turn statute on its head; womens groups to sue
The Missouri Senate approved a constitutional amendment to ban non-U.S. citizens from voting and also ban ranked-choice voting.
Democrats prosecuting political opponets just like foreign dictrators do

HbAD2

populist / nationalist / sovereigntist right are kingmakers for new government
18 year old boy who thinks he is girl planned to shoot up elementary school in Maryland
Biden assault on democracy continues to build as he ramps up dictatorship
One would think that the former Attorney General would have known better
UNC board committee votes unanimously to end DEI in UNC system
Police in the nation’s capital are not stopping illegal aliens who are driving around without license plates, according to a new report.
Davidaon County student suspended for using correct legal term for those in country illegally

HbAD3

 
Back to Top