Operation Warp Speed’s Logistics Chief Weighs In On Vaccine Progress

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November 10th, 2020

Gen. Gustave Perna, shown hear at a Senate confirmation hearing in June, tells NPR that if a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine is approved by the FDA in December, “10 to 30 million doses of vaccine will be available that we can start distributing” in the U.S.

Chip Somodevilla / AP

A top U.S. Army general who is co-leading the federal COVID-19 vaccine initiative anticipates that the first of millions of Americans could start receiving COVID-19 vaccines as soon as next month.

“I think a safe and effective vaccine will be available initially in December,” Gen. Gustave Perna told NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly in an interview Monday. If the Food and Drug Administration authorizes a vaccine by then, “10 to 30 million doses of vaccine will be available that we can start distributing.”

Perna is chief operating officer for Operation Warp Speed, the government’s initiative to fast-track the development, manufacture and distribution of COVID-19 drugs and treatments. In May, he was appointed to co-lead the project, along with the initiative’s chief science adviser, Moncef Slaoui.

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