In September Pfizer CEO Dr. Albert Bourla explained that his company rejected offers of taxpayer money through the US Government’s ‘Operation Warp Speed‘ programme because it would slow down vaccine development.

Speaking to Face The Nation, Dr. Bourla explained that he “wanted to liberate our scientists from any bureaucracy” so they can focus on the science. Today, his “get the government out of the way” approach appears to have worked. Read his prescient remarks in full:

“If it fails, it goes to our pocket. And at the end of the day, it’s only money. That will not break the company, although it is going to be painful because we are investing one billion and a half at least in COVID right now.

But the reason why I did it was because I wanted to liberate our scientists from any bureaucracy. When you get money from someone that always comes with strings. They want to see how we are going to progress, what type of moves you are going to do. They want reports. I didn’t want to have any of that.

Basically I gave them an open chequebook so that they can worry only about scientific challenges, not anything else. And also, I wanted to keep Pfizer out of politics, by the way.”

Governments may be better at locking people down. Free markets are better at innovating to liberate people…