By Nathaniel Weixel – 05/17/21 12:48 PM ED
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The Hill- The U.S. will share an additional 20 million doses of domestically authorized coronavirus vaccines with the rest of the world by the end of June, President Biden announced Monday.
The vaccine exports will consist of doses from either Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech or Johnson & Johnson, which are the only three vaccines authorized for use in the U.S.
The move is in addition to a previous commitment to send 60 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses overseas as soon as they are cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, and comes amid mounting pressure on the Biden administration to provide more help to other countries.
It is not known how long it will take for the FDA to declare the AstraZeneca vaccine safe.
“We know America will never be fully safe until the pandemic that’s raging globally is under control,” Biden said during a White House address. “No ocean’s wide enough, no wall is high enough, to keep us safe.”
Biden has pledged that the U.S. would soon become an “arsenal” of global vaccine supply. He said on Monday that the 80 million doses will represent 30 percent of the vaccines produced by the United States by the end of June.
“This will be more vaccines than any country has actually shared to date, five times more than any other country. More than Russia and China, which have donated 15 million doses,” Biden said.
Biden stressed that unlike Russia and China, the U.S. would not use its vaccine surplus to expand its influence abroad and leverage favors from other countries.
“We want to lead the world with our values. With this demonstration of our innovation and ingenuity, and the fundamental decency of American people,” Biden said. “We’ll share these vaccines in service of ending the pandemic everywhere.”
Biden said White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients will be in charge of the effort, working with the National Security Council and the State Department.
“We have the vaccine. We’ve secured enough supply to vaccinate all adults and children above the age of 12,” Biden said. “Over the past 118 days, our vaccination program has led the world. And today, we’re taking an additional step to help the world.”
The administration had initially been reluctant to send any doses overseas, saying the extra doses could be a backstop for possible manufacturing issues, used to vaccinate children, or serve as booster doses if necessary to fight against variants of the virus.
But the vaccine supply picture has improved dramatically in the U.S., while there are at the same time worsening crises in other countries. India has even faced shortages of oxygen as it deals with an alarming spike in cases.
The U.S. has taken some steps toward international cooperation.
In February, Biden announced $2 billion in funding for COVAX, an international initiative dedicated to equitable distribution of the vaccine.
In March, the administration shared over 4 million doses of available AstraZeneca vaccine with Canada and Mexico.
Earlier this month, the administration announced support of a World Trade Organization waiver of patent rights. But experts have said it won’t help to increase supply this year.
Advocates, still, are calling for a more concrete plan from the administration.
According to the World Health Organization, the U.S. and other high-income countries have secured almost 90 percent of the available coronavirus vaccine supply.
“Twenty million is a depressingly tiny figure compared to the global need; akin to tossing a bucket of water at a raging inferno. If India were to receive all 20 million doses, it would vaccinate less than one percent of its population, beyond what it has already,” said Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program.
“Dose donations are welcome, but they are no substitute for a plan of scale and ambition to end the pandemic. The world is in dire need of such a plan from leaders including President Biden,” Maybarduk said.
On Monday, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus repeated his calls for manufacturers and high-income countries to share their doses with COVAX.
“There’s a huge disconnect growing where in some countries with the highest vaccination rates, there appears to be a mindset that the pandemic is over, while others are experiencing huge waves of infection. The pandemic is a long way from over,” Tedros said. “No one is safe until we’re all safe.”
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India Posts Record Daily Deaths of 4,329
India variant will be dominant UK Covid strain ‘in next few days’
Scientists’ warning comes as government comes under pressure to explain border policy
The Covid variant first detected in India is set to be the dominant strain in the UK within days, experts have said, with the government and health teams struggling to contain cases, which have risen by more than 75% since Thursday.
With the rapid spread of the more transmissible B.1.617.2 variant threatening to reverse moves to ease lockdown, the government faced intense pressure to more fully explain the delay in adding India to the so-called red list of countries.
Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser, joined the criticism on Monday, calling the UK’s border policy a “joke”
Johnson is now set to delay plans to announce an end to social-distancing rules, postponing the conclusion of a review expected by the end of the month, casting significant doubt over the wider plan to relax most lockdown rules on 21 June.
Speaking on the day indoor hospitality and other venues were allowed to reopen, Matt Hancock told MPs that 2,323 cases of the variant known as B.1.617.2 had been confirmed, up from 1,313 on Thursday, with 483 of those in the outbreaks in Bolton and Blackburn. There are now 86 local authorities with five or more confirmed cases, he said.
Describing a “race between the virus and the vaccine”, the health secretary rejected calls from Labour to consider a push to vaccinate all adults in the most affected areas, saying that surge testing was the best remedy.
Hancock said 35,000 more tests had been distributed or collected in Bolton and Blackburn, along with a push to target those eligible for vaccinations, with 6,200 jabs carried out in Bolton alone over the weekend.
But new data from the the Wellcome Sanger Institute’s Covid-19 genomic surveillance, which excludes samples from recent travellers and surge testing, has shown how rapidly and widely the variant appears to be embedding.
According to an analysis of the data by Prof Christina Pagel, the director of the Clinical Operational Research Unit at University College London and a member of the Independent Sage group of experts, the variant was detected in almost 30% of Covid samples collected in England in the week ending 8 May.
Paul Hunter, a professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said the India variant seemed set to supplant that first detected in Kent, which was in turn notably more transmissible than earlier forms of coronavirus.
“There is no evidence that the recent rapid rise in cases of the B.1.617.2 variant shows any signs in slowing,” he said. “This variant will overtake [the Kent variant] and become the dominant variant in the UK in the next few days, if it hasn’t already done so.”
This has prompted renewed questions about why India was not added sooner to the red list of countries, where all arrivals apart from UK nationals are banned, and those who do come must quarantine in a hotel for 10 days.
Responding in the Commons, Labour’s shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, said UK borders “have been as secure as a sieve”.
Yvette Cooper, the Labour chair of the Commons home affairs committee, said people would “understandably feel angry” if reopening from lockdown was put at risk due to border decisions, citing statistics showing that in early April, arrivals from India tested positive for Covid at 50 times the then UK rate.
Separately, in a Twitter thread prior to his appearance before the Commons health and science committees on 26 May, Cummings lambasted the UK’s response to Covid, citing as an example “our joke borders policy”.
In a sentiment likely to raise some eyebrows given his own long-distance drives last spring, Cummings also argued that lockdowns only worked with “serious enforcement”.
Hancock defended the government’s approach in the Commons, saying it had added India to the red list on 23 April, six days before the B.1.617.2 variant was put under investigation and two weeks before it was labelled as being of concern.
However, another variant first discovered in India and closely related to the variant of concern, called B.1.617.1, was was designated under investigation on 1 April, weeks before travel from India was restricted.
Ministers could face a significant backlash if the spread of the B.1.617.2 variant derails the planned June reopening, or even forces the reversal of some of Monday’s changes.
A government source said more time was needed to gather data about the effect of the variant, but stressed it did not necessarily mean the 21 June date would slip. “We thought we would be in a position to give some notice well in advance, now we will need a bit more time,” the source said.
The review into social distancing was expected to announce an end to the 1-metre rule for hospitality venues, which has seen some needing to significantly reduce capacity, as well as an end to fines for not wearing masks.
In a sign that the UK government could be preparing ground for its roadmap to slip, a Downing Street spokesman said: “The variant first identified in India could pose serious disruption to this progress, and could make it more difficult to move to step 4.
“Our decision will be based on the very latest data, and we want to allow as much time as possible to assess this so we will set out plans as soon as the data allows.”
Some Conservative MPs have expressed grave worries at the idea of a reversal to reopening.
“When will this government actually take a little bit of risk and allow people to get on with their lives again?” Huw Merriman, the Tory MP who chairs the transport committee, told Hancock in the Commons.
Giles Watling, who represents the seaside resort of Clacton in Essex, said that local businesses had reported a boom in bookings as people planned UK holidays this summer, and there was huge worry about the idea of new restrictions.
“I understand that ministers have to act, but we didn’t really get a summer season last year, and it would be a real kick in the teeth if we couldn’t open up in the way we have been planning.
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