HHS Needs Help to Take Over Covid ‘Warp Speed,’ Watchdog Says

The Department of Health and Human Services took over the government’s program to speed Covid-19 vaccines to Americans without the personnel needed to oversee it properly, a watchdog agency says.

The HHS assumed full control of rushing the development, manufacturing, and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines—once known as Operation Warp Speed—at the beginning of 2022 while lacking enough staff to monitor vaccine supply-chain safeguard programs, the Government Accountability Office reported Wednesday. The Defense Department previously oversaw some of these programs, and the HHS will require “multiple additional contractors” to continue them, the watchdog said.

Staff shortages could mean the HHS isn’t …