The government agency that develops medical countermeasures for the US stockpile says it had to move quickly to secure contract manufacturing plant capacity for COVID-19 vaccines before the private sector could “capture” it. There was no time to give other contract manufacturers a chance to bid for the work, which the Health and Human Services Department’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, recently awarded in a pair of task orders totaling nearly $900 million. BARDA awarded a $628…