WASHINGTON – The Biden government will increase the supply of Covid-19 vaccines by five percent next week, sending doses directly to community health centers targeting low-income people.
Since President Joe Biden took office, the number of doses sent to states has increased by 28 percent to 11 million doses per week as Pfizer and Moderna increase production, White House coordinator Jeffrey Zients Jeffrey Zients said.
“It’s the manufacturers who are doing a good job and the president and the team are doing everything in our power to support the production,” Zients said. Biden’s administration announced last week that it would use the Defense Production Act to provide Pfizer with additional equipment to further increase production.
In addition to doses sent to state governments, federal officials will send 1 million vaccines directly to 250 community health centers, serving hard-to-reach groups such as the homeless, migrant workers and residents of public housing, Marcella Nunez-Smith said. , which leads the leading task force of Biden’s Covid-19 shares.
“Equity is our North Star here,” she said. “This effort, which focuses on direct allocation to community health centers, is actually about contacting the hard-to-reach populations across the country.”
People of color vaccinated at a slower rate than white people, state and federal data indicate. Biden administrative officials attributed this to a variety of barriers, such as less access to health care in minority communities.
As of February 4, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 32 million first doses had been administered and that more than 9 million people had been fully vaccinated.
