Biden Administration Will Buy Another 200 Million COVID-19 Vaccine Doses

The Biden administration has announced that it will purchase another 200 million COVID-19 vaccine doses that will be delivered sometime this summer. The White House said during its announcement 'it is critical that we vaccinate as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.' The vaccine is part of Biden's National Action Strategy on the pandemic.

The Biden administration is operating with a goal to administer 100 million vaccine doses in the first 100 days of the president's term, but that will only innoculate 50 million people. In addition to this effort, the administration states that it is also working to 'ramp up vaccine supply as fast as possible.'

By the end of the summer, the White House says there will be enough vaccine doses to cover the full US population. Officials will increase the number of vaccine doses supplied to states, territories, and tribes to 10 million doses every week. This will be a 1.4 million dose increase over the current 8.6 million supplied per week. This will be the minimum supply over the next three weeks, the administration states.

As well, the Biden-Harris team aims to increase transparency regarding vaccine availability, stating that states, territories, and tribes will be given a 'reliable' look at their upcoming three-week vaccine supply. This is a two-week increase over the previous one-week look-ahead, the White House notes.

Meanwhile, the 200 million vaccine dose purchase will be split in half, with 100 million coming from Moderna and the other 100 million from Pfizer. This will bring the nation's total vaccine order up to 600 million from 400 million by this summer, offering a tantalizing hope after the long months of the pandemic.