You're listening to shortwave from NPR.

Hey everybody, Emily Quang here with NPR's pharmaceuticals correspondent Sydney Lupkin.

Hi, Sydney.

Hey.

So, you've got a look back story for us about operation warp speed.

That was the Trump administration's crash vaccine program that cost billions of taxpayer dollars

and was meant to make a vaccine available in record time.

Yeah.

It started in May of 2020 and the initial promise was a few hundred million doses by the end of the year.

But that didn't happen.

We eventually got the doses but later.

And I just wanted to figure out why.

Yeah, it's a really good investigative question.

And it's an easy one to let slide.

Right? Considering where we are now, we're asking those who are vaccine hesitant to please consider the shot.

But Sydney, only a few months ago, vaccine doses were scarce.

And I remember there was a ton of anxiety around when people would be able to get a shot.

Totally.

So, I wanted to figure out why the promise far exceeded how many doses were actually available early on.

So, I've spent months digging through data and documents and then, you know,

made about a zillion phone calls.

Yeah.

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