WASHINGTON | The United States wants to order 200 million additional doses of COVID-19 vaccine with the goal of being able to vaccinate the entire American population by the end of the summer, the House announced on Tuesday. -White.
“We believe that we will soon be able to confirm the purchase of 100 million doses for each of the two vaccines authorized by the Medicines Agency, Pfizer and Moderna”, which would be in addition to the 200 million doses already ordered from each company, US President Joe Biden said during a White House address.
The additional doses must be delivered in the summer and allow the United States to have “enough doses to fully immunize 300 million Americans by the end of the summer or the beginning of the fall”, a explained Mr. Biden.
The new White House tenant on Tuesday presented new measures to speed up vaccine distribution in the country, which experienced delays and logistical problems at the end of Donald Trump’s term.
“The vaccination program was in a worse situation than we had anticipated,” he threw a spade at his predecessor.
Vaccines are distributed according to the size of states, and some have complained that stocks are too limited, and not enough syringes or protective equipment for health workers.
To speed up vaccination, US states should receive 10 million doses per week, up from 8.6 million currently, for at least the next three weeks, the president said.
The Biden government is also committed to providing states with an estimate of the dose distribution over three weeks, compared to just one currently, which will allow local authorities to better organize vaccination campaigns.
“War effort”
“This will allow governors, mayors and local officials to have more certainty in terms of deliveries, so that they can implement their plan to vaccinate as many people as possible,” said Joe Biden.
On Monday, the US president estimated that the United States would move closer to collective immunity from COVID-19 by the summer.
“I am confident in the fact that, by the summer, we will have come much closer to collective immunity,” he said, while the country is the most affected in the world with more than 25.4 million positive cases and more than 420,000 deaths.
“It’s a war effort,” he said on Tuesday, saying his government’s end goal was to “beat COVID-19”.
It will take “months” to vaccinate the whole country and the situation will continue to worsen before improving, he warned, citing a potential death toll of 500,000 at the end of February.
In the meantime, “it is the masks, not the vaccines, which are the best defense”, added the president, who is trying to convince the population to protect their faces for 100 days to stem the spread of the coronavirus, in a country which still has many opponents of the mask.