Photographer: Cheney Orr / Bloomberg
Photographer: Cheney Orr / Bloomberg
The Biden administration on Friday announced plans to use the Defense Production Act to increase supplies for the manufacture of The Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and to increase the availability of home virus tests.
Priority ratings will give Pfizer first access to raw materials, allowing the company to increase manufacturing and meet its delivery targets, said Tim Manning, Covid-19’s supply coordinator, at a briefing at the White House.
Six new companies will also increase the production of home tests to make more than 60 million of these tests available by summer, according to Manning.
“This amounts to the first sequence of actions under the Defense Production Act that we have taken under the Biden administration in recent weeks,” said Manning. The Trump administration used the DPA frequently during its response to the pandemic.
The announcements also included news from a investment in national production of surgical gloves and plans to send 1,000 military personnel to support the state’s vaccination sites.
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– With the help of Shira Stein