Diplomats see events as a sign that Biden is moving to share some of the hundreds of millions of doses that the United States will have left over once all Americans are vaccinated. But the president remains cautious about sending vaccines abroad before people in the United States have access, and management health experts continue to warn that extra doses may be needed as the virus mutates and the pandemic persists.
Increasingly suspicious of Beijing and Moscow’s efforts to use their vaccines to promote good relations in countries desperate to start vaccinating their populations, and close to a point where any American who wants a vaccine can get it, Biden and his team began to develop more robust plans to increase overseas assistance efforts.
On Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new position for Gayle Smith, former director of the United States Agency for International Development, to coordinate the international response to the coronavirus pandemic. Smith had recently been the CEO of ONE Campaign, which has been verbally lobbying the Biden administration to send part of the US vaccine supply abroad. His appointment is an indication that the government is now in a position to start thinking about sharing vaccines, a government official said.
For now, the White House says it should retain enough vaccines in case of unforeseen developments in the pandemic.
“Why are we not at the point where we are sharing doses with all countries in the world? Part of that is because we need to plan what is to come,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday, citing a combination recent up in a Johnson & Johnson vaccine production plant that resulted in 15 million doses ruined.
“We have to plan a series of contingencies. This is exactly what we did,” she said. “This is one of the many reasons why we will still be in a place where we have enough vaccines for adult Americans by the end of May.”
Last week, Psaki said talks about sharing vaccine doses in the United States would eventually take place.
“As we gain increasing confidence that we have enough vaccine, we will explore options to share more widely,” she said.
‘The international market is very heated for vaccines’
Speaking on Monday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that rich countries should help speed up vaccine deployment in the poorest countries, warning that not containing the virus abroad would deepen inequality and end up hurting the United States.
“Unless we act now, the world is susceptible to the emergence of an ever-widening global divergence between rich and poor countries,” she said.
The United States has announced separate financial commitments to entities in charge of producing and distributing the vaccine in developing countries – including $ 4 billion for Covax, an international consortium – and a pledge to help expand vaccine production in India with the aim of distributing the product elsewhere in Asia.
The United States has also provided limited shipments of the AstraZeneca product – which is not yet authorized for use in the United States – to Mexico and Canada, whose leaders discussed the issue with Biden during virtual summits in the past two months.
Still, Biden has so far stopped sending ready-to-use doses of the three vaccines being distributed in the United States – Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson – to countries that need them. He resisted calls to loosen intellectual property rules to allow other countries to start producing vaccines.
He is also facing pressure from a variety of global voices to intensify his efforts to get more vaccines from the world.
Alfonso Quiñónez, Guatemala’s ambassador to the United States, said in an interview that more money to buy vaccines was not a problem. Instead, he said that access to vaccine supplies has been a challenge due to global demand.
“If our population cannot be vaccinated – and every day a number of Guatemalans enter the United States who have not yet been vaccinated – the risk continues to exist here in the United States,” he said.
“We are not asking for donations,” he added. “We have the resources to acquire them, but at the moment, the international market is heated for vaccines”.
Political and practical concerns about sending extra doses abroad
The US government has purchased far more doses of vaccine than would be needed to supply vaccines to the entire population of the country, distributing orders between the three currently authorized and AstraZeneca. Biden’s team is afraid to release doses already purchased for a variety of reasons, both political and practical, according to people familiar with the matter.
But officials cited the still uncertain nature of the virus, which has mutated and continues to spread in the United States, as the main reason for maintaining an excessive stock of doses rather than sending them abroad.
Officials said the possibility of more variants, and the prospect of requiring booster doses in the future, is leading to a reluctance to distribute more of the US vaccine supply abroad, although the government expects an overdose.
Biden’s health advisers are also waiting to see which vaccine works best on teenagers and children, and do not want to send doses abroad until they know which vaccine will be recommended when the test is completed and those age groups become eligible. This could still take months, and officials said they did not want to be in a position to send a vaccine abroad that is suddenly needed by American children.
The political disadvantages of sending vaccines abroad are also present in government decision-making. Biden’s team recognizes the imperative to make vaccines available to Americans before sending them abroad, and the president himself has made it clear to his team that his focus is now on the United States’ vaccination efforts.
“If we have a surplus, we will share it with the rest of the world,” said Biden last month. “We will start by ensuring that Americans are served first, but then we will try to help the rest of the world.”
Authorities believe that the political disadvantage of vaccine sharing will decrease as availability increases in the United States. Officials see early May as the time when most Americans will have access to vaccines, making the distribution of vaccines abroad more palatable.
It is unclear what percentage of Americans need to be vaccinated before Biden’s team decides to start sharing vaccines with other countries, but that discussion is expected to take place in the coming days and weeks, government officials said.
Smith, the new coordinator, will engage in inter-agency discussions to determine what sharing with other countries will look like and when the government is ready to start doing so, government officials said. The ONE campaign, which the organization that Smith previously ran, asked for 5% of the US supply to be shared abroad once 20% of the US population was vaccinated.
“As we become more confident in our vaccine supply here at home, we are exploring options to share more with other countries in the future,” said Blinken at the State Department on Monday, announcing the new appointment. “We believe that we will be in a position to do much more on that front. I know that many countries are asking the United States to do more, some with growing despair, because of the scope and scale of their emergencies in Covid. We listen to you, and I I promise we’re going as soon as possible. “
Government national security officials recognize the value of providing vaccines abroad – diplomatically, strategically and in terms of health. But because the president’s views on vaccination of Americans in the first place are firm and well-established, few internal disputes over the issue have arisen, the aides said.
The United States is already providing some direct support for Covid-19. For example, in Colombia, the USA donated isothermal transport kits, which allowed 1.2 million doses of vaccine to be transported to remote regions of the country.
Blinken also highlighted other “core values” that he said would guide the State Department’s plans in what appeared to be a blow to Russia and China: “We will not over-promise and under-deliver. We will maintain high standards for vaccines that we help to bring it to others, distributing only those proven to be safe and effective. We will insist on an equity-based approach. “