The Biden administration’s purchase of 200 million additional doses of Pfizer and Modern means that the U.S. could fully vaccinate 300 million people with just those two vaccines – and 355 million most people if four additional vaccines obtain FDA approval.
Why does it matter: The United States is home to 250 million adults, many of whom do not want to be vaccinated. It is now also in control of a large part of the global vaccine supply. The White House says the United States will end up donating excess doses to other countries, but has not released a plan to do so.
The situation: The administration has focused almost entirely on ensuring that all Americans who want a vaccine can get it this summer.
- With additional doses from Pfizer and Moderna – and up to 40 million doses from Johnson & Johnson ready to be deployed if approved – the White House is increasingly confident that it will achieve this goal.
- In the meantime, the government “will develop a framework for delivering excess doses … including through the installation of COVAX, as appropriate,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price.
- They will have to balance the distribution of doses around the world with preventing them from potential booster doses or vaccine hesitation.
Between the lines: Government sources emphasize that despite massive orders, only two vaccines have been approved and supplies remain in short supply. Until that changes, they say, it is too early to focus on global dose sharing.
The situation: Vaccination plans in many countries rely entirely on the global COVAX initiative, which aims to distribute two billion doses this year, mainly to low- and middle-income countries. Some do not expect to vaccinate the majority of their population by 2023.
- COVAX is developing a donation platform, which it hopes to increase in the second half of 2021, as wealthy countries begin to meet their domestic needs, according to a spokesman for Gavi, the international vaccine alliance.
- Biden said the U.S. will participate in COVAX, which Donald Trump despised, but has yet to make specific commitments.
- Countries like Canada and France said they will contribute doses to COVAX, but only Norway has promised to do so in parallel with its domestic vaccination program.
Meanwhile, India and China they are making bilateral donations to neighboring countries, while China and Russia are selling their state-financed jabs worldwide.
- White House press secretary Jen Psaki warned on Friday that China and Russia could use vaccines to make other countries owe them.
- She also emphasized that the United States committed $ 4 billion to Gavi in December for global vaccinations, and Biden’s recovery plan includes an additional $ 11 billion for the global aid effort.
- In fact, Canada and the United Kingdom bought even more doses in relation to their populations than the USA, but the USA controls most of the total doses.
What they are saying: “From a US perspective, we are missing out on a little bit of the messaging war out there,” says Dr. Krishna Udayakumar, director of the Center for Global Health Innovation at Duke University.
- “If we look at it six months from now, it could very well be that the United States donated more doses than any other country in the world. But now the story is how we are buying more and accumulating more supplies ”.
Dr. Zeke Emanuel, vice president for global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, acknowledges that mass purchases have sparked international criticism, but says things will look very different in the spring. By then, the US will have increased domestic distribution and will be able to think more about supplying doses globally.
- Emanuel, who served on Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board during the transition, says that as one of the largest coronavirus hotspots in the world – and its largest economy – the United States should be a priority country for vaccination under any circumstances.
- He also says that the billions invested by the United States can help expand global vaccine production in the long run.
- For now, however, “every time a bilateral agreement is closed, it means the capacity that could be used to support equitable access,” said Gavi’s spokesman.
The end result: As Dr. Anthony Fauci noted, the emerging variants of COVID-19 emphasize the need to distribute vaccines efficiently around the world in order to truly gain control of the pandemic.
- The United States “will be part of that process,” says Fauci. But it is not yet clear what America’s role will be.
Worthless: Most of the 1.2 billion doses of six vaccines currently in the books were purchased as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed. Sanofi’s is not on our chart because it is not expected until the end of 2021.