WASHINGTON – When President Biden promised last week to raise enough vaccine to vaccinate every adult in the United States, the verdict was hailed as a triumphant acceleration of a vaccination campaign that apparently only faltered a few weeks earlier.
And it’s true that production of two of the three federally authorized vaccines has accelerated in part due to the demands and guidelines of the new president’s coronavirus team.
But the announcement was also a triumph of a different kind: PR. Because Mr. Biden had lowered expectations early on, the faster schedule for vaccine production conjured up an image of a White House running on all cylinders, leaving its predecessor’s effort in the dust.
A closer look at the ramp announced last week provides a more mixed picture, in which the new government has expanded and expanded an attempt at vaccine production whose key elements were in place when Mr. Pray for President Donald J. Trump has taken over. Both administrations deserve credit, although neither wants to give one to the other.
The administration of Biden has taken two important steps to help speed up vaccine production in the short term. Even before Mr. Biden was inaugurated, his assistants determined that the federal government could appeal to the Korean War Law for Defense Production to obtain the heavy machinery needed to expand its plant in Kalamazoo. The Trump administration has repeatedly appealed. that law, but the Pfizer order covered only one-time supplies such as plastic liners, and not durable factory equipment.
It is important that Mr. Biden’s top assistants drove another vaccine manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson, to force a major subcontractor 24 hours a day so the vaccine could be bottled faster. The company fell behind with the production targets set out in its federal contract. Only after Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House chief adviser, and dr. David Kessler, who oversees the vaccination, has demanded that the company commit more resources, he has publicly promised to meet an important deadline in May.
At the same time, Mr. However, Biden benefited greatly from the waves of vaccine production that set the Trump administration in motion. As Pfizer and Moderna found their production base, they were able to double and triple the production of their factories.
Mr. Biden was in office for less than a month when Moderna announced that it would be able to deliver 200 million doses by the end of May, a month earlier than planned, simply because it had become faster in production. Pfizer was able to cut even more time by increasing the roster to deliver its 200 million doses with a full two months, partly because of newfound efficiencies and partly because it received credit for six doses per vial instead of five.
All this Mr. Biden was able to announce that his government would have enough doses on hand by the end of May to cover all 257 million adults, two months earlier than he had promised a few weeks earlier. His associates noted that the country achieved a daily record of 2.9 million shots on Sunday, three and a half times as many as were given on Inauguration Day.
“During our response, we have provided clear timelines based on the available, authorized vaccines,” said Kevin Munoz, a White House press secretary. “We do not plan to just meet these timelines, but rather to surpass them.”
For Trump administration assistants, the new crow rings the key. Mr. Biden proclaims victory over the achievements of his predecessor while grumbling incorrectly about a mess he says he inherited, they say.
“They criticize what we did, but they use our playbook every step of the way,” said Paul Mango, the Trump administration’s deputy chief of staff for health policy and a senior official in the development effort for clashes with the then operation. Warp Speed. . He said that Mr. Trump’s team oversees the construction or expansion of nearly two dozen plants involved in vaccine production, and has enacted the Defense Production Act 18 times to ensure those factories have adequate supplies.
The Biden team ‘maintains a very nice track’, said Mr. Mango said. “But we must not criticize to look better.”
Yet the officials of state and federal officials agree that the White House of Mr. Biden was more active than that of his predecessor in building up the country’s vaccine supply.
The relationship between the new administration and Pfizer is significantly better. Mr. Trump and his associates have accused the company of delaying the development of vaccines to prevent the re-election of Mr. To harm Trump. The company announced that the vaccine was effective on November 9, almost a week after election day, and submitted its application for emergency use on November 20.
Pfizer officials privately suggested that the Trump administration not only belittled the company, but also refused for months to appeal to the Defense Production Act to order suppliers to prioritize Pfizer’s needs, as for the other vaccine developers below. federal contract.
The assistants of mr. Biden began talking to Pfizer executives about what the company needs to make more doses, even before the inauguration day. When Biden traveled to Michigan on February 19 to visit Pfizer’s plant, Dr. Albert Bourla, the company’s CEO, praised the new government as a major ally and said officials had helped the company secure critical materials and equipment.
Johnson & Johnson closed most of the dose to cover the adults before June. About two weeks ago, dr. Richard Nettles, Johnson & Johnson’s vice president of medical affairs in the United States, only says that the company would deliver 20 million doses by the end of March and 100 million doses by June. . It shortened its contract for 37 million doses by the end of March and 87 million by the end of May.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that Johnson & Johnson had informed European Union officials that production problems could delay shipping, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he had heard similar warnings from the company.
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In the United States, the company was most concerned about having the vaccine bottled by two subcontractors. The “fill and finish” work is divided between a factory in Michigan run by Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing, or GRAM, and a plant run by Catalent in Bloomington, India. The Biden team pressured Johnson & Johnson to order GRAM to move from normal office hours to 24/7 operations, one senior administration official said. Another federal official said Johnson & Johnson were largely on track, but that they were scaling up “a little faster” under pressure.
Officials also mediated an unusual partnership between Johnson & Johnson and a longtime competitor, Merck & Co. The Trump administration has repeatedly investigated the use of Merck’s plants to boost vaccine production, but has never reached an agreement.
Zients, the pandemic adviser, said Sunday that the new alliance has helped the Biden government set its new May goal. In reality, however, Merck is likely to bottle only a few million doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine by that time, according to people familiar with its workings. The biggest benefit of the partnership will come later in the year, when Merck will rebuild a giant plant with the capacity to produce as many as 100 million doses of vaccine per month.
In addition to the nuts and bolts of production, the White House of Mr. Biden conducted a completely different message campaign than that of Mr. Trump: Inferiority, and then trying to deliver too much. Mr. Trump has regularly boasted of imminent achievements, including a pre-election vaccination, only to fall short. In contrast, health experts at least initially complained that Mr. Praying was too careful.
When vaccination of vaccines began in December, Mr. Biden promises that his administration will have an average of one million shots a day during his first hundred days in office – enough to vaccinate 50 million people by the end of March.
After less than a week in office, he increased the goal by 50 percent, to 1.5 million shots per day. The country has the initial goal of mr. Praying reaches about a month ahead of time and is now averaging 2.17 million doses per day.
Carefully calibrated goals “avoid losses,” said David Axelrod, the senior strategist for President Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns. “They certainly should have learned the lesson by watching Trump.”
‘Internally, you drive to the highest possible goal you can achieve. “Outwardly, you set a floor that you have reasonable confidence that you can reach,” he said.
Katie Rogers reported. Kitty Bennett and Susan Beachy contributed research.