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The United States Monday said that it was stepping up efforts to combat covid-19 worldwide, appointing a veteran diplomat to run the Biden administration’s global coronavirus response and pledging to support the more equitable production and distribution of vaccines. “This pandemic won’t end at home until it ends worldwide,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in remarks Monday announcing the appointment of Gayle Smith, former director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, as global covid-19 coordinator. (Cunningham, 4/6)

U.S. health officials are helping AstraZeneca find a new manufacturing partner for millions of its coronavirus shots after the contractor Emergent BioSolutions mixed up ingredients for two Covid-19 vaccines it's simultaneously producing, a senior health official told POLITICO. The Biden administration already told Johnson & Johnson to directly take over vaccine manufacturing at Emergent’s Maryland plant after reports that the manufacturer had contaminated 15 million Johnson & Johnson doses with ingredients for AstraZeneca’s shot. (Owermohle, 4/5)

Democrats in Congress, activist groups and developing countries are lobbying President Joe Biden to weaken intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines, a move that could expand global supplies but would anger the drugmakers that partnered with the government to create the life-saving shots. The drugmakers argue that stripping them of their patent protections could backfire at a time when they are working to produce boosters to combat virus variants. And they say there are better ways to ensure the vaccines reach the world's population. (Cohen, 4/5)

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Monday called for speeding up the distribution of coronavirus vaccines in poorer nations, arguing the United States and global economies are threatened by the impact of covid-19 on the developing world. While the United States and other rich countries are hoping for a return to normalcy as soon as this fall, many parts of the developing world are not on pace to have widespread vaccination of their populations until 2023 or 2024. Those countries have largely suffered more devastating economic impacts from covid, in part because they do not have the fiscal capacity to authorize the levels of emergency spending approved in the United States. (Stein, 4/5)

Health care providers are eagerly awaiting billions of dollars from a Covid-19 relief fund. But President Biden’s health department has not yet tasked a point person with making final policy decisions on the program. Amid all the other pandemic-related issues the Health and Human Services Department is dealing with, much work remains on the provider grant fund. (Cohrs, 4/6)