The White House is flexing its muscles from the Defense Production Act using it to increase vaccine production, deliver more COVID-19 tests at home and create more personal protective equipment, officials announced on Friday.
Tim Manning, the national supply chain coordinator for the COVID-19 response under President Biden, said that DPA will be used to get more equipment and supplies for Pfizer so he can distribute vaccines more quickly.
“At the moment, one of the factors that restrict the increase in vaccine manufacturing is the limitation of equipment and ingredients,” explained Manning during the White House COVID task force briefing.
He said the federal government will expand the priority ratings in Pfizer’s supply contracts so that they can obtain the materials before anyone else and allow them to take more photos.
“We are expanding Pfizer’s priority ratings … to manufacture the COVID vaccine,” said Manning, who used to work for FEMA.
“It is actions like these that will allow Pfizer to increase production and achieve its goals of delivering hundreds of millions of doses in the coming months.”
Manning said the federal government is also using DPA to increase the supply of rapid COVID-19 tests at home, bringing in six new suppliers who will be able to deliver 61 million tests by the end of the summer.
“The country is lagging behind in terms of what we need to do in testing, especially rapid home tests that will allow us to get back to normal activities, like work and school,” said Manning.
Earlier this week, the task force announced a plan to take the first domestic non-prescription COVID test to Americans through Australian company Ellume, and six more suppliers are in contract negotiations now, which will be completed in a few weeks, Manning said.
To reach the 61 million target, DPA will be used to help companies build new factories and new production lines on American soil, which will reduce “our vulnerabilities to supply chain disruptions,” said Manning.
Finally, Manning announced plans to produce more surgical gloves by building factories to produce the raw materials needed for the equipment and then factories to produce them.
“We are already working to increase the availability of N95 masks for frontline employees, but another critical area of concern that we continually hear about is surgical gloves. At the moment, we simply do not have enough gloves, we are almost 100% dependent on foreign manufacturers to export the surgical gloves from our country to protect healthcare professionals and this is unacceptable, ”said Manning.
“By the end of the year, we will produce more than one billion nitrile gloves a month here in America. We will now do enough to satisfy half of all the demands of the American healthcare community in the United States right here, off the coast of the United States. “
Manning said there are additional plans to use DPA in programs that will allow scientists to track variants of COVID-19 and see new ones, but more funding is needed to get projects going.
“Congress could help a lot in this effort by approving the American Rescue Plan,” said Manning, referring to the $ 1.9 trillion stimulus package that was approved by the Senate on Friday.