US to buy 200M more vaccine doses
President Joe Biden said Tuesday the deal means the U.S. will have enough doses to fully vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of summer or early fall.
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden announced Tuesday the U.S. has reached an agreement to purchase an additional 200 million COVID-19 vaccine doses, doubling the nation’s vaccine supply with enough to fully vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of summer or beginning of fall.
“This is a wartime undertaking. It’s not hyperbole,” Biden said during remarks on the COVID-19 pandemic at the White House.
Biden outlined the new purchase plans along with an increase in the weekly vaccine allocation to states, Tribes and territories from 8.6 million doses to a minimum of 10 million doses over the next three weeks.
The Department of Health and Human Services is also planning to provide states, Tribes and territories with allocation estimates for the upcoming three weeks instead of the one week look-ahead they previously received, Biden said.
“This is going to help make sure governors, mayors and local leaders have greater certainty around supply, so they can carry out their plans to vaccinate as many people as possible,” he said.
The 1.4 million federal boost will primarily be supplied by Moderna’s vaccine, one of two authorized for emergency use in the U.S. Pfizer, which makes the second authorized vaccine, announced earlier Tuesday it was ahead of schedule on fulfilling the 200 million doses the U.S. purchased last year.
Each of the vaccines requires two doses. A second shot should be administered about three or four weeks after the first, depending on which vaccine was given.
The announcement comes after several states have reported vaccine and supply shortages while tens of thousands of people who managed to get appointments for a first dose have complained of cancellations.
Biden has issued a flurry of execution actions related to COVID-19 and laid out a 198-page plan that includes a campaign to meet his pledge of administering 100 million vaccine shots in 100 days, expanding access to testing, requiring masks on most forms of transportation and providing relief to states and cities still struggling to contain the spread of the virus.
The plan’s success relies on Congress quickly acting to approve the president’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, an ambitious proposal that some GOP lawmakers remain skeptical about.
Biden again warned that coronavirus cases would continue to climb, noting the death toll could top 500,000 by the end of next month, but remained confident in his administration’s COVID-19 plan.
The U.S. has more than 25.4 million confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 424,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
“I hope you’re all asking me by the end of the summer that you have too much vaccine left over, you have too much equipment left over,” he said.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters earlier Tuesday that administration officials were calling governors to brief them on updated plans for vaccination distribution and coordinate a further rollout.
Following the call, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan offered a more sobering assessment, noting the limited vaccine supply was “only a tiny fraction of what our citizens desperately need.”
“We appreciate the administration stating that it will provide states with slightly higher allocations for the next few weeks, but we are going to need much more supply,” he said in a statement.
The world set another record for deaths in a week, at 99,978, on Monday and neared its 100 millionth confirmed case Tuesday.
Coronavirus deaths and cases per day in the U.S. dropped markedly over the past couple of weeks but remain alarmingly high. The U.S. is recording just under 3,100 deaths a day on average, down from more than 3,350 less than two weeks ago.
New cases are averaging about 170,000 a day after peaking at almost 250,000 on Jan. 11.
The number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has fallen to about 110,000 from a high of 132,000 on Jan. 7.