US President Joe Biden signed two contracts on Thursday, each securing 100 million coronavirus vaccines for the country.
US President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that his government has closed deals to buy 200 million additional doses Covid-19 Vaccines
“This afternoon, we signed final contracts for an additional 100 million doses from the Moderna laboratory and 100 million additional vaccines from Pfizer,” said Biden after a tour of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) headquarters near Washington.
The Biden administration said last month it is looking for these deals, which will increase the stock of vaccines in the US by 50%. With these doses, the United States will have enough supplies to vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of July, according to the president. Even more than that.
The US government has been one of the world’s vaccine hoarders alongside the UK and Canada. So far reports indicate that the United States, with a population of 328 million, is as follows:
- 300 million doses of Pfizer
- 300 million doses of Moderna (including Thursday’s contracts)
- 100 million doses of Johnson & Johnson (insured)
- 100 million AstraZeneca doses (insured)
- 100 million doses of Novavax (insured)
- 100 million doses of Sanofi / GlaxoSmithKline (insured)
The US vaccination campaign got off to a shaky start in December, but has since improved: At least 34.7 million people have already received one of two doses of the vaccination, about 10% of the population.
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In total, 46.3 million doses have been administered and 68.2 million doses have already been distributed, according to official figures. Thousands of pharmacies took appointments Thursday to give injections the next day.
The federal government has also used emergency legislation to increase vaccine production, opened massive stadium vaccination centers, and launched a separate program to reach disadvantaged communities.
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But this news, positive for the United States, is not so good for the rest of the nations. According to estimates made by analyzing vaccine contracts, if all doses reached the United States and the United Kingdom, they could vaccinate their population up to four times. Canada is said to have the capacity to vaccinate its population up to six times.
In fact, Canada has been harshly criticized for its decision to receive 1.9 million vaccines from the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility, known as the COVAX Mechanism, a global vaccine exchange initiative jointly coordinated by the World Health Organization, the Coalition for Innovations in Epidemic Preparedness and Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance.
- This is the only worldwide mechanism for vaccine distribution and includes almost all countries in the world (approximately 190 countries adhere to the mechanism). At COVAX, the richest countries subsidize access to vaccines for the poorest.
- And while all countries have the right to claim COVAX doses, Canada will be the only member of the G7 to do so. The other wealthy countries have chosen not to demand doses – at least in this wave of infections – because they have secured access to vaccines through other bilateral agreements.
- It should be noted that Canada has secured more vaccine doses per capita than any other country in the world, which is increasingly criticizing it. Ottawa signed advance agreements with seven pharmaceutical companies to ensure the country has sufficient doses to vaccinate its population multiple times.
Competition is even between the rich countries themselves. London has received more doses than it needs, while the rest of Europe has experienced major supply problems. This has led to a delay in vaccination. According to The timesPrime Minister Boris Johnson has considered giving some of his vaccines to the neighborhood, but this decision has not yet been made. The rich countries have been told to share rather than accumulate, but this cooperation will always be determined by the conditions they impose.
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What we are seeing now is that rich countries are buying the most vaccines, even more than they need. But the root of the problem lies deeper, the organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) confirms in its latest report.
Its president for Latin America, psychiatrist Germán Casas, assured El Espectador that the vaccine patents, added to their gluttonous commercialization, are the ones that will ultimately shape a world that will violate the very essence for which they were created: universal access to immunization. If these lands were now eliminated or sold at a low cost, poor or low-income countries would be able to produce the amount needed to finally defeat the virus in a much shorter time than estimated.
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This is the picture of deaths, infections and hospitalizations in the country most affected by the pandemic in the world.
Deaths:
Hospital admissions:
Cases:
This is the vaccination card: