Us President Joe Biden plans to send an additional 20 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine overseas by the end of June, which will include vaccines licensed for use in the United States for the first time when supply exceeds demand in the United States.
Biden will announce on Monday that it will export an additional 20 million doses of Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson vaccine in addition to the 60 million doses of AstraZeneca previously planned to be distributed to other countries, according to a senior government official familiar with the plan.
The official, who declined to be named before Biden's speech, stressed that these measures are only the first step and that the US government will turn its attention to curbing outbreaks overseas. Biden promised that the United States would soon become a "warehouse" of global vaccine supplies.
Biden will also announce the appointment of Jeff Zients, the White House epidemic response coordinator, to fight the global epidemic, the official said. Zients will work with the National Security Council and other agencies to distribute vaccines overseas.
The news marks a watershed moment for the epidemic and will be a major shift for the Biden administration. From Trump to Biden, the US government requires that almost all of the first hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine are produced in the United States. As a result, Biden has made the United States one of the most successful vaccination promotions in the world, but it has also exacerbated the inequality between countries that can produce their own vaccines and those that cannot.
Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson vaccines are all approved for use in the United States, but the AstraZeneca vaccine is not approved. It is not clear which countries will receive the vaccine from the United States.
Mexico and Canada have received stocks of AstraZeneca vaccines from the United States. In addition to the Biden administration's vaccine-sharing program, Pfizer has begun exporting U.S.-made vaccines to countries such as Mexico, Canada and Uruguay.
The willingness to be vaccinated in the United States is beginning to reach its limit, and the proportion of adults who have received at least one dose of the vaccine will exceed 60% on Monday.
At the same time, many low-income countries and even some developed countries are still struggling to secure vaccine supplies.
Covax, a global program designed to help low-income countries gain access to vaccines, is facing supply shortages, which are expected to reach about 190 million doses next month, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Monday. Biden had previously said he would provide up to $4 billion to Covax.
Biden is under pressure to do more to ease the global epidemic, with the United States lifting almost all epidemic restrictions and other countries trying to contain new outbreaks and new mutants amid limited vaccine supplies. Biden has launched what he calls a "new phase" of the epidemic response-persuading people who are hesitant about vaccination.
The number of new cases in the United States continues to decline, with 16857 new cases recorded on Sunday, the lowest since March 2020-although Sunday is usually the lowest day of the week. The rate of vaccination is more than 1/3 lower than it was a month ago, and now it is maintained at about 2 million doses a day.
Vaccine export has always been a thorny issue for Biden. He has tried to re-establish the image of US leadership on the international stage, but has also followed many of the Trump-era US priorities in the response to the epidemic. Both the European Union and India export vaccines at the same time as domestic distribution, while the United States has restricted supply markets for months, effectively blocking early exports.
Trump and Biden used wartime powers to give priority to American factories to fulfill their orders, including contract terms that restrict the government from sharing vaccines overseas.
The US government is trying to circumvent these restrictions by calling the 4.2 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine shipped to Mexico and Canada as "loans".