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 evolve and mutate if you don’t give them an open playing field to replicate and replicate essentially in an unbridled way,” said Anthony Fauci, the government’s highest infectious disease specialist, this Friday. fair at a Covid-19 White House meeting.
Biden’s team spent their first weeks in office trying to control the country’s chaotic vaccine launch, find ways to increase the country’s limited vaccine supply and develop a strategy to address the threat of new variants.
Friday’s announcements represent the most detailed view of how the government plans to use DPA, which allows the government to place priority orders on manufacturers.
Biden’s team plans to sign DPA contracts with six diagnostic companies in the coming weeks to increase the availability of tests that Americans can use at home. The contracts will take a few more weeks to finalize, said Tim Manning, the president’s coronavirus supply chain coordinator, who declined to name the companies that will produce the tests.
The government also aims to increase the country’s supply of essential personal protective equipment, such as surgical gloves, which are in short supply. The government plans to expand the national manufacture of gloves in the United States by building factories to manufacture raw materials and the gloves themselves. About 1 billion nitrile gloves could be manufactured each month by the end of the year, estimated Manning.
And the White House is using DPA to give Pfizer priority access to two components it needs to make its Covid-19 vaccine, Said Manning. The company and its German partner, BioNTech, manufacture one of two vaccines authorized for use in the United States.
Production problems have shaken hopes that Johnson & Johnson’s single-injection coronavirus vaccine, now under review by the Food and Drug Administration, could increase supply on the downsized team. The agency is expected to authorize the use of the injection later this month, but opening stocks will be less than the White House expected, said Andy Slavitt, senior adviser to Biden’s Covid-19 response team.
“As is the case with other vaccines, we have not found that the level of manufacture allows us to have as much vaccine as we think we need to leave the gate,” said Slavitt. He refused to provide details on specific actions that can be taken, rather than saying “all options are on the table to find out how to speed up manufacturing in case the FDA approves the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.”
So far, states have received about 57 million injections of coronavirus, although federal data shows that only about 35 million have been administered. Part of this gap is likely due to delays in notification of vaccinations. But federal and state authorities have also asked health care providers not to withhold second doses in the reserve, because vaccine shipments are more predictable than they were in the first weeks of the country’s vaccination campaign.