January 26, President Biden announced about new steps to boost vaccine supply and increase transparency for states, tribes, and territories.
“Just over a year since the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in the United States, the nation has hit another grim milestone in the pandemic, reaching 25 million infections and counting. The pace in which this virus has spread throughout the U.S. is staggering and with new variants emerging, the spread is not slowing any time soon. That’s why it is critical that we vaccinate as many people as possible, as quickly as possible,” – The White House published.
Biden’s Plan For Vaccine Supply
President Biden’s top healthcare priority is taming Covid-19, and so far he is doing so by way of executive orders accompanied by a roadmap. In a 200-page document released recently called “National Strategy for the Covid-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness,” the Biden Administration provides a fairly comprehensive framework for how it will deal with the pandemic.
The plan contains five broad objectives:
- Vaccinate 100 million people in 100 days
- Address supply gaps
- Enforce masking
- Reduce racial and ethnic disparities
- Reopen schools safely
These are lofty goals. As is invariably the case, the devil is in the details; specifically, how the Biden Administration intends to reach those goals. Implementation will face considerable challenges. While the vaccination rate has started to accelerate in recent weeks, the rollout has been bumpy since the approval of two vaccines in December. The logistical hurdles for vaccine manufacturing, distribution and prioritizing vaccination of at-risk groups are immense, especially in a federal system in which states have substantial autonomy and supplies are now running short.
The New Steps
Despite on some problems, the President is taking the following actions today:
An Increase in Weekly Vaccine Supply to States, Tribes and Territories: The Biden-Harris Administration will increase overall, weekly vaccine supply to states, Tribes and territories from 8.6 million doses to a minimum of 10 million doses. This increase of 1.4 million doses per week will allow millions more Americans to get vaccinated sooner than previously anticipated. The Administration is committing to maintaining this as the minimum supply level for the next three weeks.
Increased transparency for States, Tribes, and Territories to Help Their Vaccination Efforts: The Biden-Harris Administration is taking action to provide states, Tribes and territories with a reliable three-week supply look-ahead. The Department of Health and Human Services will provide allocation estimates for the upcoming three weeks as opposed to the one week look-ahead that they previously received. This increased transparency will give state and local leaders greater certainty around supply so that they can plan their vaccination efforts and administer vaccines effectively and efficiently.
Purchase 200 Million Additional Doses to Be Delivered This Summer, Double the Nation’s Vaccine Supply: President Biden directed his COVID-19 Response Coordinator to work with HHS to increase our total vaccine supply for the American people.
The Biden-Harris Administration is working to purchase an additional 100 million doses of each of the two Food and Drug Administration-authorized vaccines – Pfizer and Moderna. This increases the total vaccine order for the U.S. by 50%, from 400 million to 600 million with these additional doses expected to deliver this summer. With these additional doses, the U.S. will have enough vaccine to fully vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of this summer.
“President Biden has a comprehensive National Action Strategy to put the pandemic behind us and he and the COVID-19 response team are aggressively implementing it. Today, the President is announcing bold steps that will help meet the goal of administering 100 million shots in 100 days and ramp up vaccine supply as fast as possible. As a result of these actions, the federal government will have enough vaccine supply for the entire U.S. population by the end of the summer,” – reported in the article.
