US President Joe Biden announced a series of measures on Tuesday aimed at ramping up coronavirus vaccine allocation and distribution, including the purchase of 200 million more vaccine doses and increased distribution to states by millions of doses next week. With those additional doses, Biden said there would be enough to fully vaccinate 300 million Americans — nearly the entire US population — by the end of summer or early fall. He described efforts to combat COVID-19 as a "wartime undertaking." The new steps are to boost vaccine supply and increase vaccine transparency for States, Tribes, and Territories. Biden briefed reporters Tuesday on his administration's efforts to step up administering of the COVID vaccine and plans to purchase additional vaccine doses to fully vaccinate 300 million Americans by the fall. In a televised speech, Biden said, "I am directing COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients here to work with the Department of Health and Human Services and increase our total supply of vaccine for the American people; and we believe that we will soon be able to confirm the purchase of an additional 100 million doses for each of the two FDA authorized vaccines Pfizer and Moderna. "We expect these additional 200 million doses to be delivered this summer and some of it will come as early begin to come in early summer, but by the mid-summer that this vaccine will be there and that increases the total vaccine order in the United States by 50 percent from 400 million to 600 million." But the brutal truth is it's going to take months before we can get the majority of Americans vaccinated, he added. The US leader has a comprehensive National Action Strategy to put the pandemic behind us and he and the COVID-19 response team are aggressively implementing it. The purchase of 200 million additional doses to be delivered this summer, double the nation's vaccine supply. 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 US by 50 percent, from 400 million to 600 million with these additional doses expected to deliver this summer. With these additional doses, the US will have enough vaccine to fully vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of this summer. "We now have a national strategy to beat COVID-19. It's comprehensive. It's based on science, not politics. It's based on truth, not denial, and it is detailed," he said. The president also took action on Tuesday to increase the weekly vaccine supply to states, tribes and territories — upping the current 8.6 million doses to a minimum of 10 million doses weekly. Additionally, the White House will be providing three-week vaccine supply look-ahead reports to states as opposed to one week look-aheads. Zients, informed governors on a call Tuesday afternoon that COVID vaccine allocations for states would increase by around 16% starting next week. A White House document explaining the move says the Biden administration is committing to maintaining this as the minimum supply level for the next three weeks. — Agencies
