Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Biden Ups Vaccine Donations To Other Nations, Will Include All Types
President Joe Biden announced on Monday that the U.S. will share more doses of vaccines with the rest of the world, starting by sending at least 20 million additional doses to help countries battling the pandemic by the end of June. "These are vaccinations and vaccines that are authorized to be put in arms of Americans and, by the end of June, when we'll have taken delivery of enough of such vaccines to protect everyone in the United States, the United States will share at least 20 million of those doses, that extra supply, with other countries," Biden said. "This means over the next six weeks, the United States of America will send 80 million doses overseas." (Nagle, Kolinovsky and Stoddart, 5/17)
President Biden on Monday announced his intention to ship surplus doses of the coronavirus vaccine to needy nations abroad, including millions of doses of the U.S.-authorized Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. The majority of the planned shipments will be of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which does not yet have authorization for use in the United States. "We need to help fight the disease around the world," Biden told reporters at a briefing on the nation's progress against the virus. "It's the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do, it's the strong thing to do." (Wise, 5/17)
鈥淲e know that America will never be fully safe until the pandemic raging globally is under control,鈥 Biden said from the White House, pointing to the spread of virus variants overseas. He noted that the donation would be five times more vaccine than any other country has contributed. (Cohen, 5/17)
[Biden] also signaled that he intends for U.S. manufacturers to hold or grow their share of the global market for vaccines, casting his decision to begin supplying other countries as an engine for American jobs. He cautioned that American contributions alone won鈥檛 resolve the crisis. (Wingrove, 5/18)