Earlier today, Virginia became the third state to report a case of a variant first found in South Africa that spreads faster than previous versions of the virus and makes vaccines less effective.
“Viruses will not develop and mutate if you do not give them an open playing field to essentially repeat and repeat,” Anthony Fauci, the government’s chief infectious disease adjudicator, said at a White House briefing on Friday. Covid-19 said. .
The Biden team spent its first few weeks in office trying to get a grip on the country’s chaotic vaccine, find ways to promote the country’s limited supply of shots, and develop a strategy to address the threat of new variants. to address.
The announcements Friday are the most detailed look at how the government intends to use the DPA, allowing the government to place priority orders with manufacturers.
Biden’s team plans to sign DPA contracts with six diagnostic companies in the coming weeks to promote the availability of tests that Americans can use at home.. The contracts will take a few more weeks to complete, said Tim Manning, the president’s coronavirus supply chain coordinator, who did not want to name the companies that will set up the tests.
The government is also aiming to strengthen the country’s supply of critical personal protective equipment, such as surgical gloves. The government plans to expand the local manufacturing of the gloves in the US by building plants to manufacture raw materials and the gloves themselves. Manning estimates about 1 billion nitrile gloves per month by the end of the year.
And the White House is using the DPA to give Pfizer priority access to two components needed to manufacture its Covid-19 vaccine. Manning said. The company and its German partner, BioNTech, make one of two vaccines that can be used in the United States.
Production woes have the hope that Johnson & Johnson’s single-vaccine coronavirus vaccine, now being evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, could increase supply in the short term. The agency is expected to authorize the use of the shot later this month, but the initial stock will be less than the White House had hoped, said Andy Slavitt, a senior adviser to Biden’s Covid-19 response team.
“As with other vaccines, we have not found that the level of manufacture enables us to have as much vaccine as we think we need to get to the gate,” Slavitt said. He did not want to provide details on specific steps that can be taken, but says: “every option is on the table to figure out how to speed up production if the FDA approves the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.”
To date, states have received about 57 million shots of the coronavirus, although federal data shows that only about 35 million have been administered. Some of this gap is probably due to the backlog in vaccination. But federal and state officials have also urged health care providers not to keep the second doses in reserve, as the transport of vaccines is more predictable than in the first weeks of the country’s vaccination campaign.