Paul Ostrowski, Operation Warp Speed’s director of supply production and distribution, discusses the strategy for delivering COVID-19 vaccines as they become available.
In this 4.5-minute video, Ostrowski outlines the tenets driving the distribution strategy and the existing platforms that distribute and administer the annual influenza vaccine. He also discusses powerful partnerships and the support provided to states as they prepare to receive vaccines.
Ostrowski is a member of the Army Senior Executive Service and a retired Army Lieutenant General. In his position at Operation Warp Speed, Ostrowski synchronizes efforts and capabilities across the private sector and leads an interagency civilian and military team charged with ensuring the successful manufacturing, distribution, and administration of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics.
Transcript
Well, we looked at distributing the vaccines. We wanted to go after a couple of tenets in order to kind of get a focus as to where we wanted to be. So the first tenet really is control and visibility. So what does that mean? Well, number one, we know that we’re gonna have limited numbers of vaccines up front, and we have to target those vaccines towards our prioritized populations. And so we wanna make sure that we control those vaccines to get to those particular American public citizens that we have. In addition, we wanna have visibility of where it’s at at all times, because it’s gonna be unprecedented. The scrutiny is gonna come down with respect to where are the vaccines. Uptake, the second tenet. We wanna make sure that we don’t have imbalances between supply and demand. Are there overages here, are the shortages there. So we want to always have that particular uptake information available to us. Next is called basically, traceability. What does that really mean? Traceability means hey, look. We, number one, we have to notify people because five of the six vaccines require a second dose. We want to be able to notify people. So we have to notify them. And then we have to have verification. We have to verify that the first vaccine they got was a Moderna vaccine, for instance. Well, their second vaccine becomes a Moderna one as well, as these vaccines are not interchangeable. And finally coverage, the final tenet. We are gonna have to go beyond the brick and mortar of a normal pharmacy that you’re used to, or doctor’s office, or hospital. We have to get to long-term health care facilities. We have to get to meat packing plants. We have to go mobile. And so we have to be able to cover the entire United States and not depend on people to come to us. Well, the normal flu vaccine, again, similarities and differences between the COVID-19 vaccine and a flu vaccine. The flu vaccine, the influenza vaccine every year, basically a company comes up with the vaccine and all kinds of participants order those vaccines. Whether it be CVS, whether it be a doctor’s office, or a hospital, a public health center, they order those vaccines and the particular company ships the vaccines to that administration site. This is a little bit different with respect to the early days with COVID and then the COVID vaccine, because up front, again, we talk about prioritization of people. Our citizens that are most vulnerable. Our frontline healthcare providers. We’ve gotta be able to get those vaccines to those particular populations first. So we want to push that vaccine out as opposed to being pulled in the normal influenza model. Now when we get hundreds of millions of vaccines available to us, we’ll be able to just follow the normal influenza model as a pull system. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, in terms of my confidence, we can do this. We’re doing it now with the influenza vaccine. You know, the normal places that you’re used to getting your shot, whether it be the doctor’s office or hospital, or one of the many chain pharmacies that are out there, we can do this today with that. We can certainly do this with the COVID-19 vaccine. Yeah, so if you want to talk about power between the tie up between the CDC and the Department of Defense, and even HHS for that matter, CDC brings a lot to the table. They’re very used to working with the states. They understand the distribution process. They understand how to get the vaccines out there. They do it over and over, each and every single year. Vaccines for children and the rest. The power the DoD brings is that urgency. The planners that we have, the multiple capabilities to secure supply chains to be able to get after the manufacturing, not only the distribution, but the manufacturing piece. Then on the distribution side, the ability to plan for every single contingency in working with the states and the CDC. That relationship is powerful. We’ve understood that there has been questions with respect to the readiness of the states, and I will tell you that they are ready, and I will tell you this. We’ve provided a lot of capability to the states. Number one, $200 million went out to the states recently, and then they submitted their plans of how they were going to execute the administration. And between now and the 15th of December, now we’ve seen those plans. Another $140 million worth of assistance will go out to the states. In addition to that, the vaccine is free. And then also the ability to administer it, all the needles and syringes, all the things necessary for the administration, that’s all being provided with the vaccine at the particular administration site for the states. In addition, we have given the states a very high speed computer type system, an IT system that allows them to be able to play within the architecture to determine where vaccines are, where there are shortages, where there are supplies, issues, and so forth. We’ve sent IT specialists down to each one of the states in order to help them through that process in order to use this very new tool and very creative tool called Tiberius. Sure. My name is Paul Ostrowski, and I’m the Director for Supply, Production, and Distribution.