Biden Announces a Big Vaccine Deal, but Warns of Hurdles
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - The Biden administration said it has now secured enough vaccine to inoculate every American adult, but President Biden warned that logistical hurdles would most likely mean that many Americans will still not have been vaccinated by the end of the summer.
Officials said Thursday that they had arranged to get 200 million more doses of vaccine by the end of summer, which amounts to a 50 percent increase. That should be enough vaccine to cover 300 million people.
But it will still be difficult to get those shots into people’s arms, and Mr. Biden lamented the “gigantic” logistical challenge his administration faces during an appearance at the National Institutes of Health, The New York Times reported.
“It’s one thing to have the vaccine, it’s another thing to have vaccinators,” Mr. Biden said.
Mr. Biden also expressed open frustration with the former administration.
“It was a big mess,” he said. “It’s going to take time to fix, to be blunt with you.”
He said, “While scientists did their job in discovering vaccines in record time, my predecessor — I’ll be very blunt about it — did not do his job in getting ready for the massive challenge of vaccinating hundreds of millions.”
Health officials in the Trump administration have pushed back on those suggestions, pointing to hundreds of briefings that officials at the Department of Health and Human Services offered the incoming health team, including on vaccine allocation and distribution.
The department said Pfizer and Moderna would each provide 300 million doses by the end of July in “regular increments.”
The deal for 200 million additional doses of vaccine announced Thursday helps fulfill a promise Mr. Biden made in January to ramp up supply to cover more of the population. He said then that the administration was closing in on that deal with the two manufacturers as part of his larger pledge that some 300 million Americans could receive a dose of the vaccine by the end of the summer or the beginning of the fall.
On Thursday, Mr. Biden said his administration had “now purchased enough vaccine to vaccinate all Americans.”
And earlier in the day, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, predicted that as early as April, any American could begin seeking a vaccine in an “open season” that would extend availability beyond priority categories.
Still, the issue might be getting doses to people who do not readily seek them.
“We’ll be reaching more and more of the population, and more of the population you’ll have to make an extra effort to reach,” said Dr. Nicole Lurie, who was the assistant health secretary for preparedness and response under President Barack Obama. “You have to hope that as the supply continues to open up, that the public still has a lot of demand for vaccines. That’s really the unknown.”