President Biden
Joe BidenPompeo: The re-entry of Iran deal will make the Middle East ‘less safe’ for DNC to push mid-term. Biden struggles to unravel the web of Trump immigration rules more is under increasing pressure to share the US vaccine supply with the rest of the world.
The federal government has amassed doses and increased its supply to likely a surplus as the rest of the world struggles with shortages. The US has bought enough vaccines to immunize every adult in the country three times.
The supply is likely to grow.
This week, Biden announced that he had ordered the administration to purchase 100 million doses from Johnson & Johnson.
The White House said the extra doses could be a stop to possible manufacturing problems, help vaccinate children, or serve as a booster dose if needed to fight off variants of the virus.
If finalized, the deal will only be honored in the second half of the year, but the U.S. will give a total of 200 million shots of Johnson & Johnson, enough for 200 million people.
Asked at the White House meeting about the growing gap between the US and the rest of the world, Biden acknowledged the global nature of the pandemic, but said his goal was to bring COVID-19 under control in America first. bring.
“It’s not something that can be stopped by a fence, no matter how high you build a fence or a wall,” Biden said. “So in the end we are not going to be safe until the world is safe. We are going to make sure that Americans are taken care of first, but then we are going to try to help the rest of the world.”
“If we have a surplus, we’ll share it with the rest of the world,” Biden added, noting that the US already has $ 4 billion in COVAX, the World Health Organization-led program, for the distribution of the vaccine in the world.
On Friday, Biden pledged to work with the leaders of Australia, India and Japan to expand vaccine manufacturing and delivery in Asia. The new commitment is aimed at addressing vaccine shortages in Southeast Asia.
Yet government officials have reiterated that the United States will not donate any vaccines before the full U.S. population is vaccinated, and did not say what threshold the country would set before considering vaccination.
Experts and global health advocates think that the US has the ability to donate vaccines to other countries without significantly affecting their availability to Americans, but are unwilling to make such a plan.
“The world is currently facing a crisis of access crisis and the Biden government has not yet drawn up a clear framework or timeline for the distribution of excess vaccine doses while simultaneously vaccinating the U.S. domestic population,” Sarah Swinehart said. a spokesman for The ONE Campaign, said.
The global aid organization UNICEF, which works with COVAX to deliver vaccines, said that countries that have vaccinated their own health workers and populations at the highest risk should share the doses of vaccines with other countries.
In the US, demand is still better than supply, but that is starting to change. States are opening the election, and President Biden said he expects there will be enough supplies for every American who wants a vaccine by the end of May.
During a speech Thursday night, Biden said every adult can sign up for a vaccine no later than May 1st.
But pressure and frustration among allied countries is only increasing after the government said it was stopping tens of millions of doses of a vaccine made by AstraZeneca.
The Trump administration has ordered 300 million doses of the vaccine, but problems with clinical trials have halted its authorization and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is still awaiting additional data.
The vaccine is approved for emergency approval in the European Union, and is the primary vaccine used by COVAX in poor countries. But although it has not been approved in the US, Biden administrative officials have said they are holding the stock.
Coronavirus Coordinator in the White House Jeff Zients
Jeff Zients Sunday shows preview: Democrats declare victory over COVID-19 stimulus; Vaccination efforts offer hope for summer Five things need to happen to get people vaccinated Biden committed to working with ‘Quad’ countries to gain access to vaccines MORE told reporters that the U.S. has a “small supply” of the AstraZeneca vaccine on hand so it can be ready to distribute quickly if the company gets FDA approval next week.
“We are following exactly the same process as we did with the other three vaccinations that have now been approved; Moderna, Pfizer and J&J,” Zients said.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki
Jen Psaki administration by sending FEMA to the border amid the influx of migrant children. Five things that need to happen to face vaccinated people in the White House is the challenge of delaying GOP vaccine MORE said the US had rejected all requests from other countries to share doses of their vaccines.
“There have been requests around the world from a number of countries requesting doses from the United States, but we have not provided doses from the US government to anyone,” Psaki said.
Psaki said the government is trying to cover all contingencies and ensure Americans are put first.
“We want to make sure that we have maximum flexibility, that we are oversupplied and over-prepared and that we have the ability to vaccinate the American public, regardless of the most effective,” Psaki said. “There are still 1,400 people dying in our country every day, and we need to focus on that.”