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On Wednesday, the White House announced that the Biden administration is now purchasing an additional 100 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine. Biden announced the federal government’s purchase with the heads of Johnson & Johnson and Merck during an event at the White House. He said he is instructing the DHHS (Department of Health and Human Services) to secure the additional vaccine doses. A senior White House adviser for Covid-19 response, Andy Slavitt said, “This order allows for the president to plan for the future and the latter part of the year. This is wartime, and as facts still emerge, it gives us maximum flexibility for our upcoming needs”. Earlier this month, both pharmaceutical companies announced they would be partnering to boost the production of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose coronavirus vaccine.

Point to be noted that Merck is expected to dedicate 2 factories to produce the shot. On Wednesday, President Biden said, “Today we’re seeing two health companies, competitors… coming together to write a more hopeful chapter. Any surplus of the vaccine will be shared with other countries. We’re going to start off making sure Americans are taken care of first, but we’re then going to try to help the rest of the world”. Biden also called the agreement a historic, nearly unprecedented, collaboration. Any surplus of the vaccine will be shared with other countries. Biden has set an objective of ensuring the country administers at least 100 million vaccinations in his first 100 days in office. The Biden administration has continued to increase the federal government’s supply of doses to accelerate the objective.

The DHHS announced last month that it purchased 200 million more doses of COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. The administration’s order brought the total doses bought by the federal government from both companies to 600 million. It would be enough to fully vaccinate 300 million people, mostly the US population. The recent federal authorization of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine for emergency use is expected to speed up vaccinations in the country. President Biden also announced that the nation will have enough vaccines to cover all adults by the end of May 2021. At least 93.7 million vaccine doses have been administered as of Tuesday and 123.2 million shots have been delivered. It is noteworthy that more than 32 million Americans are fully vaccinated and the US is now averaging more than 2 million shots administered per day.