‘When I took office, the previous administration did not contract enough vaccine to cover adults in America. We fixed it. ”
– President Joe Biden, March 2 News Conference
During a news conference on March 2 on the covid-19 pandemic, President Joe Biden claimed that former President Donald Trump’s government did not guarantee that there would be enough vaccinations for the American public.
“When I took office, the previous administration did not have enough vaccine to cover adults in America,” Biden said. “We fixed it.”
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Biden then announced that he was using the Defense Production Act to facilitate a partnership between two competing drug companies: Merck agreed to help manufacture the custom-made Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
The move, he said, would speed up the timeline for vaccine availability: “We are now on track to have enough vaccine supplies for every adult in America by the end of May,” he said, two months earlier than he had previously. projected.
It has been a general political message since Biden’s administration took office that the initial vaccination under Trump was ‘chaotic’. PolitiFact had earlier rated a claim by Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, that the Trump administration had left no vaccine plan as mostly false.
So we thought it was important to see if Biden went too far in claiming that the Trump administration had not contracted enough vaccines to cover the American public. Let’s see what the contracts, which are public documents, say.
The Warp Speed Contracts operation and the FDA process
As part of Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration has entered into contracts with several drug manufacturers. The contracts were generally signed while potential vaccines were still in clinical trials.
Experts told us it was smart because the Trump administration did not know which vaccines from which drug manufacturers would work, how effective it would be or how fast it could be produced.
“That was the whole approach of Operation Warp Speed,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Safety, said. “The Trump administration did not know which one would cross the finish line, but followed a portfolio approach and invested in several vaccines.”
This is what the Trump team’s contracts require drug dealers to provide to the US government:
In total, the amounts under these contracts amount to about 800 million doses of vaccination, or enough for more than 400 million people.
The U.S., based on U.S. census estimates, has about 328 million people, of whom about 255 million are 18 or older. (Vaccines have not yet been allowed for children.)
Thus, it appears that the Trump administration’s contracts with drug manufacturers did cover enough doses to vaccinate the entire American adult population – and then some. By that measure, Biden’s statement is inaccurate.
An important point to remember, however, is that these contract numbers are not necessarily deliverable vaccines. The contracts are early promises. Important obstacles still had to be removed before these potential vaccine candidates could become a reality.
Kevin Gilligan, a senior consultant at Biologics Consulting, a firm focused on pharmaceuticals, said that once drug manufacturers develop a vaccine, they should test it through clinical trials with humans and gather enough data to show that the vaccines are safe and effective and cause minimal side effects.
The data is then submitted to the Food and Drug Administration, which decides whether the vaccine should be approved for emergency use. The granting of an emergency authorization means that the vaccine can then be distributed to the public.
Until recently, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were the only ones to reach that stage, gaining authorization on 11 and 18 December respectively.
The Trump administration announced on December 23 that it will purchase an additional dose of $ 200 million in total from both companies’ vaccines.
A warning worth noting: the correct numbers were lower
A Biden administration spokesman told KHN that the president was referring only to orders for the authorized vaccines: “When the Trump administration was in office, there were only two approved vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) and the Trump government did not contract enough. them to vaccinate all Americans. They had only 400 million doses of these authorized vaccines, which is just enough for 200 million Americans. With our entry, one of our first steps was to make sure we had enough supplies for every American. We were prepared from day one. ”
At this point, the Biden White House is correct. The U.S. government has agreed to buy 400 million doses of the authorized vaccine, both of which are two-dose vaccines – not enough for the entire U.S. adult population.
It is also true that five days after Biden became president, he announced that his government had reached agreements with Moderna and Pfizer to jointly purchase 200 million doses. The purchase was completed on February 11 and brought the total US stock to 600 million, or enough to vaccinate 300 million people.
In addition, Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine was approved for emergency use on Feb. 27. Under the Operation Warp Speed contract, J&J is supposed to deliver 100 million doses to the US by May, but production is apparently in arrears. The Biden administration to have J&J work with Merck to achieve its production goal will increase the supply of vaccines.
But is it fair that Biden blames the Trump administration for not buying more Pfizer and Moderna vaccines once they are approved for emergency use?
The answer to that is not clear, say the experts.
“It’s not entirely fair to say that the previous administration did not buy enough because they bought more doses after the vaccine was approved,” said Jennifer Kates, senior vice president and director of the World Health and HIV Organization. policy at KFF, said. “I think the question is whether they would have bought it earlier?”
The New York Times reported on December 7 that before the announcement of Pfizer’s covid vaccine was very effective in clinical trials, the company offered the U.S. government the option to purchase additional doses, but the Trump administration refused. Former Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar disputed the news report and said in a TV interview that Pfizer did not agree on a production amount or delivery time for the additional vaccine, and therefore could not agree to the agreement: ‘I’m definitely not going to sign an agreement with Pfizer that gives them $ 10 billion to buy a vaccine that they can then deliver five, ten years of this. It makes no sense. ”
James Love, director of Knowledge Ecology International, a non-governmental organization that obtained copies of joint government contracts, agrees that once it is clear that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are likely to receive FDA approval, the Trump administration could take action. to make competitive drug companies. increase the production capacity of vaccines as Biden did with Merck and J&J.
“The US could have forced the transfer of technology between companies, which meant they would be assured of additional vaccine production capability,” Love said. ‘The agreements we are now entering into on the scale of production are actually coming quite late. It takes several months to get things started. ”
But Gilligan noted that Biden’s government had the benefit of hindsight. “Biden inherited the success of vaccine development under Trump and then expanded on it,” Gilligan said. ‘And Biden’s government has the advantage of looking back at what has been done well and what has not, and to make the appropriate affirmative action. Afterwards is 20/20. ”
In general, there are questions as to whether the Trump administration could have acted more quickly to buy doses or increase the manufacturing capacity of the vaccine. And the government of Biden has certainly taken important measures to expand the supply.
But it is true to say that the Trump administration did not have enough contracts to vaccinate the American adult population.
Our rule
Biden said the Trump administration “contracted for not nearly enough vaccine to cover adults in America.”
While Trump was still in office, his government had agreements to buy 400 million doses of authorized vaccine, or enough to vaccinate about 200 million people. It would not cover the American adult population.
However, KHN-PolitiFact reviewed the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed contracts and found that they contained enough vaccine doses that, once cleared for use by the FDA, would vaccinate about 550 million people – more than double the U.S. adult population.
Biden’s statement contains an element of truth, but ignores facts that would give a different impression.
We judge this claim mostly false.
SOURCES:
Census Bureau, national population by characteristics: 2010-2019, visited on 5 March 2021
Department of Health and Human Services, Novavax contract, 6 July 2020
Department of Health and Human Services, Pfizer contract, 21 July 2020
Department of Health and Human Services, Sanofi contract, 30 July 2020
Department of Health and Human Services, Janssen contract, 5 August 2020
Department of Health and Human Services, Modern Contract, 9 August 2020
Department of Health and Human Services, AstraZeneca contract, 28 October 2020
Department of Health and Human Services, “Trump administration buys additional 100 million doses of COVID-19 investigative vaccine from Pfizer,” December 23, 2020
Department of Health and Human Services, “Biden administration buys additional doses of Pvizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines,” 11 February 2021
Department of Health and Human Services, “Biden Administration Announces Historic Manufacturing Collaboration Between Merck and Johnson & Johnson to Expand Production of COVID-19 Vaccines,” March 2, 2021
FactCheck.org, “Biden’s Misleading Vaccine Boasts,” February 23, 2021
Food and Drug Administration, “FDA Takes Important Actions in Combating COVID-19 by Issuing Emergency Use Authorization for First COVID-19 Vaccine,” 11 December 2020
Food and Drug Administration, “FDA Takes Additional Action in Combating COVID-19 by Issuing Emergency Use Authorization for Second COVID-19 Vaccine,” December 18, 2020
Food and Drug Administration, “FDA Authorizes Emergency Use for Third COVID-19 Vaccine,” February 27, 2021
KFF distributes a COVID-19 vaccine across the US – a look at key issues, 20 October 2020
Knowledge Ecology International, Modern Contracts, 11 December 2020
The New York Times, “Trump Administration Gives Opportunity to Secure More Pfizer Vaccine,” December 7, 2020
PBS NewsHour, Alex Azar interview, “Britain makes out a vaccine, but what will distribution in the US look like?”, December 8, 2020
Telephone interview with James Love, Director of Knowledge Ecology International, 4 March 2021
Telephone interview with Kevin Gilligan, senior consultant at Biologics Consulting, 4 March 2021
Telephone interview with Jennifer Kates, senior vice president and director of global health and HIV policy at KFF, 4 March 2021
Telephone interview with Dr. Amesh Adalja, Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, March 3, 2021
PolitiFact, “Trump vaccine plan left logistics to states, but it exists,” January 27, 2021
The White House, remarks by President Biden on the COVID-19 vaccination efforts of the Administration, 2 March 2021