The White House is flexing its muscle production law muscles by using it to increase vaccine production, deliver more home COVID-19 tests and create more personal protective equipment, officials announced Friday.
Tim Manning, the national supply chain coordinator for the COVID-19 response under President Biden, said the DPA would be used to get more equipment and supplies for Pfizer so it could come out faster with vaccinations.
“Right now, limited equipment and ingredients are one of the factors limiting the increased production of vaccines,” Manning explained during the White House’s COVID task force briefing.
He said the federal government would extend the priority ratings on Pfizer’s supply contracts so they could get the material in front of someone else and allow them to take more of the photos.
“We are expanding the priority ratings for Pfizer … to manufacture the COVID vaccine,” said Manning, who previously worked at FEMA.
“It is actions like these that will enable Pfizer to increase production and reach its targets of delivering hundreds of millions of doses over the coming months.”
Manning said the federal government is also using the DPA to increase the supply of rapid COVID-19 tests by offering six new providers that could deliver 61 million tests by the end of the summer.
“The country is far behind where we need to test, especially the quick home tests that enable us all to return to normal activities such as work and school,” Manning said.
Earlier this week, the task force announced a plan to bring the first non-prescription COVID test to Americans through the Australian company Ellume, and six more suppliers are now in contract negotiations, which will take place in a few weeks. , Manning said.
To achieve the 61 million target, the DPA will be used to help businesses build new plants and build new production lines on U.S. soil, which will “reduce our vulnerability to supply chain disruptions,” Manning said. .
Finally, Manning announced plans to manufacture more surgical gloves by building plants to manufacture the raw materials needed for the equipment and then factories to manufacture them.
‘We are already working to increase the availability of N95 masks for frontline employees, but another important issue we hear over and over again is surgical gloves. At the moment we just do not have enough gloves. “We rely almost 100% on overseas manufacturers to export surgical gloves from our country that protect health workers, and that is unacceptable,” Manning said.
‘By the end of the year, we will be manufacturing more than a billion nitrile gloves a month here in America. We will now make enough to meet half of all U.S. health care communities here on the U.S. shores. ”
Manning said there are additional plans to use the DPA for programs that enable scientists to detect COVID-19 variants and see new ones, but more funding is needed to get the projects underway.
“Congress can greatly help this effort by succeeding in the US bailout plan,” Manning said, referring to the $ 1.9 billion stimulus package passed by the Senate on Friday.