Biden intensifies vaccine diplomacy efforts as he hopes to deliver overdoses

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Diplomats see developments as a sign that Biden is heading for the distribution of hundreds of millions of doses that the United States will remain once every American is vaccinated. But the president remains cautious about sending vaccines abroad before people in the United States have access, and administration health experts continue to warn that additional doses may be needed as the virus moves and the pandemic persists.

Increasingly concerned about the efforts of Beijing and Moscow to use their vaccines to encourage good relations in countries desperate to start vaccinating their populations, and the time is approaching when any American who wants a vaccine can get one, Biden and his team have begun to develop stronger plans to step up assistance efforts abroad.

On Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new position for Gayle Smith, former director of the US Agency for International Development, to coordinate the international response to the coronavirus pandemic. Smith was the latest CEO of the ONE Campaign, which voiced pressure on the Biden administration to deliver some of the US vaccine abroad. Her appointment is an indication that the administration is now in a position to start thinking about how to distribute the vaccines, an administration official said.

US diplomats said they expected more internal talks in the coming weeks on where the US should send excess vaccines. The eventual decision – which administration officials said could be a few months away – will take into account a variety of factors, such as US interests in different regions and Covid-19 levels in individual countries. The nations of South and Central America are considered particularly critical because of the current increase in migration to the United States, according to officials and diplomats, but no decision has yet been made on where the excess vaccines will go.

For now, the White House says it must keep enough vaccines in case of unforeseen developments in the pandemic.

“Why aren’t we sharing doses with every country in the world? Part of that is because we need to plan for the next thing,” White House Secretary of State Jen Psaki said Monday, citing a mix recently – after a factory producing the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which led to 15 million doses destroyed.

“We have to plan a series of unforeseen situations. That’s exactly what we did,” she said. “This is one of the many reasons why we will still be in a place where we have kept enough vaccines for American adults until the end of May.”

Last week, Psaki said there would eventually be talks about distributing vaccine doses in the United States.

“As we become increasingly confident that we have enough vaccine, we will explore wider sharing options,” she said.

“The international market is too hot for vaccines”

Competition with China, which has already given vaccines to dozens of countries, will be a significant challenge, officials acknowledged. But given the global demand and desire for vaccines in the US and Europe, Biden administration officials do not think it is too late for the US to go to market.

Speaking on Monday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said rich nations must help accelerate the spread of the vaccine to poorer countries, warning that failure to contain the virus abroad will deepen inequalities and harm the United States.

“If we do not act now, the world is susceptible to a deeper global divergence between rich and poor countries,” she said.

The United States has announced separate financial commitments to vaccine production and distribution entities in developing countries – including $ 4 billion to Covax, an international consortium – and a commitment to help expand vaccine production in India. distribute the product elsewhere in Asia.

The US has also provided limited deliveries of AstraZeneca products – not yet authorized for use in the United States – to Mexico and Canada, whose leaders have raised every issue with Biden during virtual summits over the past two months.

However, Biden has so far stopped sending ready-to-use doses of the three vaccines distributed in the US – Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson – to countries that need them. He resisted calls to weaken intellectual property rules to allow other countries to start producing vaccines.

He is also facing pressure from a variety of global voices to step up his efforts to inoculate more of the world.

Alfonso Quiñónez, Guatemala’s ambassador to the United States, said in an interview that more money to buy vaccines is not a problem. Instead, he said access to the vaccine supply was a challenge because of global demand.

“If our population is not vaccinated – and a number of Guatemalans who are not yet vaccinated enter the United States every day – the risk continues to exist here in the United States,” he said.

“We do not ask for donations,” he added. “We have the resources to buy them, but at the moment, the international market is too hot for vaccines.”

Political and practical concerns regarding the delivery of additional doses abroad

The US government has purchased far more doses of the vaccine than would be needed to provide fire to the entire population of the country, spreading orders between the three currently authorized and AstraZeneca. Biden’s team avoided releasing doses already purchased for several reasons, both political and practical, according to people familiar with the matter.

A Pew Research Center survey in February showed that the vast majority of American adults – 66% – believed that the US should ensure that there are enough vaccines available in the United States, even if that means developing countries have to wait longer. This was the majority opinion of both Democrats and Republicans.

But officials noted the uncertain nature of the virus, which has been mutant and continues to spread in the United States, as a major reason for maintaining an overdose of doses instead of delivering them abroad.

Officials said that the possibility of more options and the prospect of the need for booster shots in the future, part of the reluctance to distribute more of the US vaccine abroad, even if the administration expects a surplus of doses.

Biden’s health counselors are also waiting for which vaccine works best for teens and children and do not want to send doses abroad until they know which vaccine will be recommended once the test is completed and those age groups become eligible. . This could be a few months away, and officials said they do not want to be in a position to send a vaccine abroad, which is suddenly necessary for American children.

The political disadvantages of sending vaccines abroad are also woven into the administration’s decision-making process. Biden’s team recognizes the need to make vaccines available to Americans before sending them abroad, and the president himself has made it clear to his team that his focus is now on vaccination efforts in the United States.

“If we have a surplus, we will share it with the rest of the world,” Biden said last month. “We’re going to start making sure Americans are taken care of first, but then we’re going to try to help the rest of the world.”

Officials believe the political disadvantage of sharing vaccines will decrease as availability increases in the United States. Officials believe early May that most Americans will have access to the fires, making the distribution of vaccines abroad more enjoyable.

It is unclear what percentage of Americans should be vaccinated before the Biden team decides to start sharing vaccines with other countries, but this discussion is expected to take place in the coming days and weeks, administration officials said.

Smith, the new coordinator, will engage in inter-agency talks to determine what the exchange with other countries will look like and when the administration is ready to start doing so, administration officials said. The ONE campaign, Smith’s previous organization, called for 5% of the US supply to be distributed abroad after 20% of the US population was vaccinated.

“As we become more confident in the supply of vaccines here at home, we are exploring options to share more with other countries in the future,” Blinken said Monday at the State Department, announcing the new appointment. “We believe that we will be able to do much more on this front. I know that many countries are asking the US to do more, some desperately growing, because of the scope and scale of the Covid emergencies. I hear you and I promise we’ll move as soon as possible. “

National security officials in the administration recognize the value of providing vaccines abroad – diplomatic, strategic and healthy. But because the president’s views on vaccinating Americans first are firm and well-established, there have been few internal disputes in the matter, attendees said.

The US has already offered direct support to Covid-19. For example, isothermal transport kits were donated to US Columbia, which allowed 1.2 million doses of vaccine to be transported to remote parts of the country.

The top U.S. diplomat said Monday that the United States will not “exchange gunfire for political favors,” but did not provide specific details about the administration’s plans to distribute the vaccines more widely than its immediate neighbors.

Blinken also pointed out other “core values” he said would guide State Department plans, in what appeared to be a blow to Russia and China: “We will not overpromise and deliver too little. . We will maintain high standards for the vaccines we help bring to others, distributing only those that have been shown to be safe and effective. We will insist on an approach based on equity. “

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