Senator Bill Cassidy said the Trump Administration’s Operation Warp Speed should be praised for producing a COVID vaccine in record time.

Cassidy said the program built an innovative way to fast-track development and set a precedent for future vaccine research.

“I read that the shortest period of time for a previous vaccine to be tested and approved was four years, it’s been done in ten months,” said Cassidy.

The first vaccines were administered in Louisiana on Monday, just 275 days after the state suffered its first COVID death.

But that rapid pace of development has many Americans fearing the vaccine is not safe. Cassidy said if you feel that way talk to one of the nurses that got vaccinated this week.

“Now she can go to work and not fear infection as she once did and she can come home and kiss her children or her mother without fear of infecting them,” said Cassidy.

Cassidy says he would take the vaccine if offered but expects he is far down the priority list due to his prior infection and likely current immunity.

Cassidy says vaccine compliance will be the key to ending this pandemic and restarting the economy.

“New Orleans hotels will be filled once more because folks will have been vaccinated and they will understand that they can travel safely,” said Cassidy. “It will save lives, it will save infection rates, and our hospital admissions will begin to go down.”

(Story written by Matt Doyle/Louisiana Radio Network(

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