The merciful end of “Operation Warp Speed”

| 5:30 pm EST January 24, 2021
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President Biden has brought in Dr. David Kessler, former head of the FDA to lead the COVID-19 vaccine distribution effort. In doing so, the moniker “Operation Warp Speed” is being dropped from the program. This is a significant, though seemingly superficial, step toward focusing on the problem and not on the hype.

As a Red Cross volunteer, I’m no stranger to mass casualties and relief efforts, such as hurricanes and wildfires. Pandemics are no different. They require situation-specific actions, solutions, and logistics. As with hurricanes, no two epidemics are going to be entirely the same. However, you can always learn from one and apply what you’ve learned to the next.

We don’t hype what we do at the Red Cross. We name every disaster, but mostly as a reference, to differentiate from others that could be occurring simultaneously. We use a simple system: “DR” for “Disaster Response”, a sequential number, and a two-digit year. If it’s local to a region, we may append the two-character state code (e.g., “AZ”). While hardly sexy, a coded designation such as “DR555-21” does the job of identifying our unified efforts across multiple disaster response organizations, including FEMA, and all first responders.

By dropping “Operation Warp Speed” – and, hopefully, not creating another, different buzzword to replace it – President Biden and Dr. Kessler are accomplishing several goals. They’re disassociating the process from the politics; they’re leveling expectations based on many unknowns that naturally negate such hyperbolic phrases as “warp speed”; and they’re focusing on the problem and solution, not the hype. If the absence of a sexy buzzword name such as “Operation Warp Speed” proves unattractive to the news outlets, and they start focusing on progress and results, and not on false expectations, well, all the better.