More than 1.1 million Americans have died from covid since the pandemic began, including more than 250,000 in 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the number of serious cases and deaths have receded, at least 35,000 Americans have died this year, and some projections suggest that the virus could surge again this fall and winter.
Current and former Biden administration officials, including Anthony Fauci, had spent months pressing Congress for billions of dollars that could be used to develop next-generation vaccines and treatments — arguments that largely fell flat, with GOP leaders asking for a thorough accounting of the billions of dollars already allocated to the broader covid response.
“This was designed to pressure Republicans to open a checkbook, sign the check and let the administration fill in the balance,” Richard Burr, who was the top Republican on the Senate’s health panel, said at a June 2022 hearing with Biden health officials.
In recent months, Biden officials have argued to GOP lawmakers that both peer and rival countries, such as Japan and China, are moving ahead with similar projects.
Key parts of the new initiative are not yet finalized. The White House is still considering candidates to lead the program, officials said. The vetting process has been complicated by Democrats’ desire to avoid questions of conflicts of interest that dogged Operation Warp Speed, after Trump officials selected Moncef Slaoui, a pharmaceutical industry executive with significant stock holdings, to lead that program. That decision had prompted criticism from Democrats although health officials praised Slaoui’s knowledge of the industry and credited his successful bets on vaccine candidates from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
Project Next Gen also faces key differences from its predecessor, including its smaller size and more open-ended mission. The Trump-era project, focused on an urgent need with a defined virus, drew on funds that officials viewed as a blank check and was budgeted at $18 billion in 2020. While the new initiative is more modest, administration officials said they might secure additional money, even as they focus on blunting variants and viruses that have yet to emerge.
Even some of the Republicans who blocked the White House’s covid funding requests last year said they were wanted a “Warp Speed 2.0” to rush updated vaccines and treatments that would better fight the virus
“Operation Warp Speed was the most successful public health program since small pox. It saved millions of lives, and it should be resurrected as soon as possible,” Burr and then-Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) wrote to Biden in August 2022.
O’Connell said that the Biden administration had drawn lessons from Operation Warp Speed, such as how to expedite vaccine development, that would be applied to Project Next Gen.
“We’ve learned a lot in these three years,” she said.