The United States may waste a tremendous amount of taxpayer money preparing to produce failed COVID-19 vaccines. That is a smart strategy.
The Trump administration is putting together an initiative called Operation Warp Speed, involving companies, government agencies and the military, aimed at collapsing the time required to create a novel vaccine against COVID-19. The goal is to have one ready by the end of this year.
The group probably can’t meet such a tight deadline. It’s practically impossible to develop novel biological products that are both safe and useful that fast, and there’s only so much the government can do to speed things up. But it can help by ensuring that, once a vaccine is ready, millions of doses can be manufactured right away.