Lessons Learned: Vaccine Development and Distribution

As the country marks the one-year anniversary of COVID-19 lockdowns, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance is looking back on what lessons were learned by government officials to better prepare for another pandemic or just to have a plan to make government more efficient. One of the most important items on the government’s “to do” list this past year was to make sure that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was able to allow the quick and safe development of a vaccine. With multiple vaccines now available, the private sector (along with regulatory easing at the FDA) has led the way in healing and vaccinating the country. The flip side of the good news of the creation of the vaccine is that distribution has fluctuated greatly from week to week, often without any real guidance. Despite all this, however, roughly one million people are being vaccinated every day. On top of that, a third vaccine by Johnson & Johnson has just received emergency use authorization from the FDA.

With mixed messages coming from the media, are we to view vaccine development and distribution as a success or failure of American policy? The answer, of course, is not straightforward and one could reasonably make the case for either. However, what is clear is that there are lessons that American policymakers at all levels of government need to learn. Many of these lessons will also be applicable in the post-COVID world.

According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), developing a vaccine can often take up to 3-5 years. With testing and approval process, production of a vaccine is a roughly decade-long endeavor. Yet, one year after COVID shut down the United States, there are now three vaccines approved for use. There is a fourth vaccine from AstraZeneca approved by the European Union and the United Kingdom, but not yet in the United States. This process shattered all previous expectations.

What policymakers should learn here is that many of the FDA barriers they took for granted are altogether unnecessary. In fact, FDA – as well as CDC – restrictions on testing and other activities surrounding the virus greatly hindered America’s collective response. Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman once opined that the most dangerous drug of all is the one that can’t be accessed because the FDA has hindered it. Friedman surmised that the FDA has done far more harm than good with its micromanaging of medicinal rollouts. With the success of three vaccines rolled out in record time with expedited review, one can only come to the conclusion that Friedman was spot on.

The rollout of AstraZeneca’s vaccine in the UK suggests policymakers should take a long hard look at implementing a policy of reciprocity for vaccines and other medicines. We should trust that UK regulators have the same quality standard as those in the US. Now that they have deemed it safe, American leaders should be thankful that they’ve saved us the time and money. Reciprocal approval of this vaccine would provide another option for the American people and more resources to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, to this point, lawmakers have shied away from such a suggestion. It’s time.

If one thing was clear as the vaccine rollout began it is that, while the private sector did their job, the federal government did not do theirs. Pharmaceutical companies provided multiple viable vaccines. However, the government had no plan for distribution and very poorly mismanaged expectations. Scheduling systems failed and states were often left wondering how many doses they would get in any given week. Operation Warp Speed looked good on paper and during press conferences, but in reality didn’t expedite the distribution of the vaccine,

Despite some setbacks and poor planning, states and localities need to be given more responsibility in the distribution and administration of the vaccine. Ultimately, the private sector needs to get involved. Amazon has figured out how to ship products overnight (and the same day in some cases). One entity (the federal government) trying to manage this for an entire nation creates too many variables and too many opportunities for stumbles – as we have seen. The federal government can take an important backseat and assist where needed.

Lastly, messaging surrounding the vaccine was – and in many ways still is – a nightmare. Government officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci stressed how important the vaccine was while simultaneously claiming that getting the vaccine wouldn’t offer any new degrees of freedom and that it wasn’t as crucial as mask-wearing or social distancing. President Biden has set the lofty goal of vaccinating one million people per day, a mark already eclipsed before he came into office. That metric should have been a floor, not a ceiling. These are among many of the contradictions to have come from leaders on this issue.

While it is an incredible thing to have three viable vaccines within a year, America will be poorly served if it views this as an unmitigated triumph. There are plenty of black marks on the government’s record on this. Some of the lessons that can be learned will make America’s pharmaceutical policy better in pandemic and non-pandemic times. They will also ensure that should the nation ever find itself in this unfortunate position again, we are far more prepared to prevent and handle it.

Dan Savickas is a policy analyst for the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.