Vaccines for use against the COVID-19 virus are now being shipped, thanks to the efforts of President Trump and his initiative — Warp Speed — that put the program on an accelerated pace, resulting in Dec. 14’s announcement.

This is a public/private partnership where drug companies were advanced $14 billion by the Trump administration to do the research. Pfizer, the company whose vaccine is being distributed, was advanced nearly $2 billion to develop and produce the vaccine.

This achievement by the Trump administration also involved accelerated evaluation procedures to reduce the time to develop, produce, and provide a vaccine.

The Health and Human Services website, hhs.gov, explains that “protocols for the demonstration of safety and efficacy are being aligned, which will allow the trials to proceed more quickly . . . Rather than eliminating steps from traditional development timelines, steps will proceed simultaneously . . . “.

A tremendous achievement by the Trump administration, for which we should all be grateful.

Robert Casimiro, Bridgton