Source: Brownstone Institute | VIEW ORIGINAL POST ==>
I have been a strong supporter of Donald Trump since the first Super Tuesday primary in February 2016, when he trounced the competition in races held in the heart of the ‘Bible Belt.’ Those results convinced me that if any Republican had a prayer (excuse the pun) of winning the White House, he was the only game in town.
One of the key elements of the Trump administration’s response to the Covid pandemic was Operation Warp Speed (OWS). A unique feature of OWS was that it was used, respectively, by Trump’s supporters and detractors to laud or denigrate the initiative, depending almost solely on political party affiliation. This bifurcation even extended to the healthcare establishment, a clear indication that medical science had been eclipsed by political science. In so doing, the physician’s creed, “First, do no harm” was shredded. The impact on patient outcomes, not surprisingly, was devastating.
In an attempt to move the discussion away from political slogans and bumper stickers, and towards a more nuanced assessment, I will examine six major OWS initiatives:
- Ventilators
- Masks
- Disinfectants
- Hospital Beds for NYC and Los Angeles
- Repurposed Therapeutics: Hydroxychloroquine
- mRNA Vaccine Development, Production, and Distribution
Ventilators
In preparing for airborne pandemics, it had been the consensus for several years that the number of ventilators available would be woefully inadequate. To meet this challenge, Trump pulled every emergency lever at his disposal in order to direct the nation’s manufacturing capabilities towards producing the number of ventilators required. This effort succeeded to the degree that the metrics for ventilator production were quickly exceeded, and a more than sufficient number was produced and distributed.
Clearly, this was a logistical triumph…but there’s the rub. It was determined early on that almost all patients with Covid-induced respiratory failure who were placed on a ventilator succumbed. You’d think that someone in authority would have made the observation that ventilators caused harm whenever used, and use of this modality would have ceased. Well, if you thought that, you’d be mistaken. Ventilators were used for months after it was clear that they caused harm. So where does responsibility for this debacle reside? Was it with OWS for supplying too many ventilators or with the healthcare providers who, under cover of perverse incentives, continued to use them?
Masks
As with ventilators, there was great concern that supplies of masks would be inadequate. Given the fact that more than 100 years of public health policy and practice had demonstrated that mask use outside of healthcare settings was a useless exercise, pulling the trigger on OWS should never have been done. However, when it came to Covid, deliberately fanning the flames of fear overcame sound public health policy, and the trigger was pulled. Sadly, all of the predicted collateral damage that universal masking could cause came to pass (as has been well-documented elsewhere), with none of the purported benefits. An additional adverse consequence that has not been mentioned is to the environment. Between the masks and the plastic straws, I’m surprised there are any sea turtles left!
Once again, where does responsibility for this debacle reside? Is it with OWS for supplying a huge number of masks or with the public health agencies that continued to push, and, in many cases, mandated a useless modality that could and did cause harm?
Disinfectants
In contrast to masks, there was evidence that use of disinfectants in viral pandemics was of value. In the reasonable belief that this benefit would extend to SARS Covid-2, OWS went into action. However, it was very quickly determined that in the case of this particular virus, disinfectant use was of little to no value. So what’s the harm in overproduction and overuse of disinfectants? I can envision three potential harms:
- Toxicity from absorption of disinfectant chemicals through the skin (via direct contact) or into the lungs (via vapor), especially in children, is concerning.
- Reduction in the usual contact with environmental organisms that helps to maintain a healthy immune system could cause severe illness from normally non-virulent pathogens.
- Resources could have been diverted to modalities of proven benefit. For almost 5 years, I have touted the addition of UV lighting to HVAC systems at indoor public venues as a means of mitigating this virus, other airborne organisms that are ubiquitous in the environment, and future airborne pandemics. What a lost opportunity!
For a third time, where does responsibility for this potential debacle reside? Is it with OWS for oversupplying disinfectants or with the public health authorities for not calling a halt as soon as it was recognized that these products were not needed in the quantities ordered?
Hospital Beds for NYC and Los Angeles
Talk about a major missed opportunity for OWS to provide benefit! Soon after lockdowns were put in place, the governors of New York (Andrew Cuomo) and California (Gavin Newsom) were in a panic, believing that there would be critical shortages of hospital beds in NYC and Los Angeles. In response to this need, OWS was implemented. The number of beds delivered and the speed of delivery exceeded the seemingly impossible demands of both governors. Tragically, these beds were barely utilized.
In the case of NYC, elderly patients were sent to nursing homes while still shedding virus, instead of to the hospital beds that OWS had made available. It has been estimated that 12-15,000 excess deaths ensued from this practice, although it could be more, given the roadblocks that were erected to hide the data. To think that this ghoul (Cuomo) will likely run for NYC Mayor, and could actually win, is beyond disturbing!
Repurposed Therapeutics: Hydroxychloroquine
In contrast to the missed opportunity for an OWS win for patients with hospital beds, there was a deliberate takedown of a likely effective therapeutic when it came to repurposing and mass distribution of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). Where have we heard the expression ‘takedown’ used before? Through off-label prescribing, HCQ was empirically found to be effective in treating Covid, if used within 4 days of the onset of symptoms.
Somehow, Trump became aware of this medication and was a driving force in getting it approved under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). Once that happened, OWS kicked in to ramp up production and distribution. Tragically, this effort was short-lived. The attacks on the safety and effectiveness of HCQ came rapidly, driven by more sinister motives.
Safety concerns revolved around the development of prolonged QT interval on EKG, which could potentially cause sudden death, and non-specific toxicity. The fact is, for approximately 50 years, HCQ was routinely used as prophylaxis in people traveling to countries where there was an increased risk of malaria. The drug would be started two weeks prior to travel, and it would be continued until two weeks after returning home.
Despite the fact that billions of doses of the drug were prescribed over the decades and EKGs were never routinely done, even in people with known heart disease, cardiac problems were never reported. Further, in treating Covid, the HCQ dose was less than that prescribed for malaria prophylaxis, and for a much shorter duration (~5 days). However, studies were done using much higher HCQ doses, which, not unexpectedly, produced toxic side effects.
The effectiveness of HCQ was challenged by doing studies in the wrong patient populations, most prominently in patients who were already sick enough to be hospitalized. In an act of statistical sleight-of-hand, a large study was done looking at patients treated between 1 and 7 days after the onset of symptoms. The pooled results showed no benefit. However, when the data were reexamined by an enterprising statistician, it was discovered that patients treated beginning on the 1st or 2nd day after symptom onset obtained considerable benefit, and patients treated beginning on the 3rd or 4th day after symptom onset had lesser, but definite benefit. It was only after treatment was started after the 4th day that HCQ was ineffective.
Why would the public health establishment deliberately exaggerate the risks and ineffectiveness of HCQ? Here’s where the more sinister motives come into play. It was because the goal was to obtain EUA for the mRNA vaccine that was being developed. Since EUA can only be used if there is no other therapeutic, HCQ had to be discredited. The fact that Trump had touted it was used to good effect. Besides, the profits to be derived by the pharmaceutical companies from an mRNA vaccine were huge, while HCQ was a generic that would generate little revenue. In addition, liability for these companies, as with all vaccines, would be zero. Come to think of it, wasn’t the definition of a vaccine changed in order to label mRNA shots as a vaccine? Talk about a perfect storm of evil!
mRNA Vaccine Development, Production, and Distribution
Here, I take a somewhat contrarian view, in that I don’t believe that mRNA vaccine development can be credited to OWS, although I do believe that production and distribution were OWS initiatives. My contrarian view regarding mRNA development stems from the fact that clandestine gain-of-function research had been going on for years, where viruses were being manipulated for infectivity and virulence at the same time as counteracting vaccines were being developed. I’m not aware of any information regarding the timeline for these processes to unfold, and it occurred before OWS was conceived.
On the other hand, mass production and distribution of the vaccine clearly fell under the OWS umbrella. Given the logistics of producing and worldwide distribution of billions of doses of a product with strict refrigeration requirements was heroic. I recall stating back in the fall of 2021 that this effort was comparable to D-Day preparations. I still believe that that is a valid comparison. However, in what will likely turn out to be the worst case of unintended consequences in history, this logistical miracle has succeeded in poisoning the planet at a rate that has never been seen before…and we won’t know the full impact for several more years!
In this instance, some of the culpability can be placed on OWS, in that the evidence of extensive batch contamination that is now irrefutable can be attributed to the emphasis on speed over safety in the production process. However, even if the product had been 100% pure, it wouldn’t have mitigated the damage. The product itself was not safe! More definitive evidence of harm is already starting to emerge, as I predicted in my most recent Brownstone Journal post on February 18, 2025: “Hope for the Healthcare System.” More evidence of harm will be forthcoming.
Putting all of this together, OWS, as a logistical exercise, was a spectacular success and a shining example of how the administrative support infrastructure is capable of performing at a high level when properly led. Trump deserves credit for providing that leadership.
Unfortunately, with the exception of the hospital beds, and distribution of HCQ, the projects for which OWS were tasked were fatally flawed. Responsibility for those failures rests solely with the public health establishment.
While I’m well aware (largely through the excellent investigative reporting done by Brownstone Journal writers) that the Dept of Defense (DOD) took control of the Covid response within a couple of weeks of the lockdowns in March 2020, it does not get the public health establishment off the hook.
When confronted with an agenda that was contrary to professional, ethical, and evidence-based standards, these public health officials had a duty to push back, and in the absence of DOD reversal, they should have resigned and gone public with their concerns.
Watching Dr Robert Redfield, former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention go on his ‘apology tour’ strikes me as being 1,500 days late, and $16 trillion short (the amount of wealth that was transferred to the top 1% as a result of these disastrous policies); not to mention the millions of people whose health was permanently damaged or whose lives were lost.
Are there OWS actions that can reverse this disaster? The Trump agenda post-inauguration has certainly been moving at warp speed. Hopefully, it will extend to the healthcare establishment.
