Biden Doubles Vaccine Purchases To Share, Will Host Global Summit
The White House is convening a virtual vaccine summit today with global leaders and health officials. President Joe Biden is expected to announce that the U.S. will buy 500 million additional Pfizer doses to donate to other countries, according to sources, and will urge well-off nations to share more. One notable absence at the event will be Russian President Vladimir Putin.
AP:
Biden Doubling Vaccine Purchase, Calls For More Global Shots
President Joe Biden is set to announce that the United States is doubling its purchase of Pfizer’s COVID-19 shots to share with the world to 1 billion doses as he embraces the goal of vaccinating 70% of the global population within the next year. The stepped-up U.S. commitment is to be the cornerstone of the global vaccination summit Biden is convening virtually Wednesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, where he plans to push well-off nations to do more to get the coronavirus under control. (Miller and Keaten, 9/22)
NPR:
The U.S. Is Buying 500 Million More Pfizer Vaccine Doses To Donate To Other Countries
President Biden is set to announce on Wednesday that the United States is buying 500 million more doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to donate to countries around the world, a pledge that will bring the total promised U.S. vaccine donations to more than 1.1 billion. (Keith, 9/22)
CNBC:
U.S. To Donate Millions More Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine Doses To Poorer Nations
Deliveries of the initial 500 million doses began in August, and the total 1 billion doses under the expanded agreement are expected to be delivered by the end of Sept. 2022, the company added. The first doses allocated through this program arrived in Rwanda in mid-August and since then, more than 30 million doses have been shipped to 22 countries. (Ellyatt, 9/22)
Bloomberg:
Joe Biden To Host Covid-19 Vaccine Summit, Pledge Donation Of Pfizer Doses
President Joe Biden will call for 70% of the world to be vaccinated by this time next year during a virtual vaccine summit he’ll host Wednesday that’s intended to spur countries, businesses and organizations to set firm targets to defeat the coronavirus pandemic. Biden will pledge a U.S. order of 500 million doses of Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE’s vaccine for donation abroad, pushing the total U.S. donation pledge above 1.1 billion doses as he leans on other nations to do the same, according to officials familiar with the event. (Wingrove, 9/22)
Newsweek:
Vladimir Putin Snubs Joe Biden's Virtual COVID Summit
Vladimir Putin will not be attending the global COVID-19 summit to be hosted by President Joe Biden later this week. The Russian president was said to have received an invitation to the virtual summit last week but does not plan to participate, his press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters, according to state-owned news agency RIA. (Lock, 9/20)
More on U.S. donations —
The Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Pledge To Vaccinate Poor Countries Stumbles Amid Logistical Challenges
A White House plan to donate hundreds of millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccines has been hampered in many developing countries by a lack of infrastructure to handle storage and distribution, leaving poorer nations far behind the developed world in vaccination rates. After a delayed start—the U.S. missed its first donation target—the Biden administration has been ramping up overseas donations, shipping around 137 million doses, most of them Moderna Inc. and Johnson & Johnson. It expects to send 500 million doses of a shot developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE by the end of June 2022, the largest donation total of any country. (Steinhauser, Siddiqui and Armour, 9/21)
In other news on the administration's pandemic response: Testing is key to Biden's plan, but they are hard to find —
AP:
Biden Bets On Rapid COVID Tests But They Can Be Hard To Find
President Joe Biden is betting on millions more rapid, at-home tests to help curb the latest deadly wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is overloading hospitals and threatening to shutter classrooms around the country. But the tests have already disappeared from pharmacy shelves in many parts of the U.S., and manufacturers warn it will take them weeks to ramp up production, after scaling it back amid plummeting demand over the summer. The latest shortage is another painful reminder that the U.S. has yet to successfully manage its COVID-19 testing arsenal, let alone deploy it in the type of systematic way needed to quickly crush outbreaks in schools, workplaces and communities. (Perrone, 9/21)
Axios:
Manufacturers Warn U.S. Of COVID Rapid Test Shortages
Manufacturers are warning that the U.S. is, at best, weeks away from the production levels needed for President Biden's plan of mass-scale rapid COVID-19 testing. The U.S. has been far more cautious than places like Britain about embracing rapid, at-home testing, AP notes. Places like schools are far behind target on testing students, despite $10 billion in federal funds. (Allen, 9/21)
