Joe Biden announced that the United States will have enough COVID-19 vaccines for all adults in the country by the end of May.

United States President Joe Biden said on Tuesday the country will have enough COVID-19 vaccines for all adults in the country by the end of May, two months earlier than expected. He also highlighted the announcement of the deal for drugmaker Merck & Co. to help produce the vaccine that has just been approved by rival Johnson & Johnson.

With the enhanced offer, Biden also announced that he would use the powers of the federal government to order all states to prioritize the immunization of teachers, and said the federal government will provide the doses directly through its pharmacy enforcement program. In that sense, he urged states to administer at least one dose of the vaccine to all teachers by the end of March as part of his administration’s efforts to reopen more schools across the country.

“Ahora estamos en camino a tener un suministro de vacunas suficiente para todos los adultos de Estados Unidos para finales de mayo”, dijo Biden, quien además destacó la asociación entre las dos compañías farmacéuticas y la comparó con el espíritu de cooperación nacunda durante World War.

The announcement came at a time when the White House intended accelerate production of J & J’s single-dose vaccine to continue its path towards “collective immunity”.

As such, the Biden administration on Tuesday asked governors to prepare for their vaccine supplies to continue to increase in the coming weeks. The extra doses also go to a federally funded program to administer doses at more accessible retail pharmacies.

“Let’s treat face-to-face learning like the essential service that it is,” Biden said.

However, the president was reluctant to predict when the nation will return to normal. “I hope next year, around this time, we get back to normal,” he said, although he hoped it would happen sooner.

Authorities said J&J was facing unexpected production issues with its vaccine and only produced 3.9 million doses before receiving emergency use authorization on Saturday. The company has pledged to deliver 100 million doses by the end of June.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki also announced on Tuesday that the federal government will increase the supply of Moderna and Pfizer vaccines to states next week to 15.2 million doses per week, from 14.5 million previously. States will also receive a percentage of the 2.8 million doses of J&J vaccine that will be available this week.

In an appeal with governors on Tuesday, Jeff Zients, a White House coronavirus adviser, said states should prepare to administer a total of 16 to 17 million weekly doses of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines by the next day. end of March, and that the amount will increase. to 17-18 million per week in early April. The supply of J&J doses to states, which is expected to decline after the initial shipment this week, will increase to 4-6 million weekly doses by the end of March and 5-6 million weekly doses through the end of April.

More than 800,000 doses of the J&J vaccine will also be distributed to pharmacies this week. The program also includes 2.4 million doses of the other two vaccines. Both numbers are expected to increase steadily as The White House is increasingly relying on the ability of drugstore chains like CVS and Walgreens to help accelerate the nation’s mass vaccination campaign.

Faced with questions about the delay in the company’s delivery schedule, J&J vice president Richard Nettles told lawmakers on Capitol Hill last week the company faced “significant challenges” because of his “Very complex” manufacturing process.

Merck’s assistance should help J&J meet its production commitments and further expand the offer, but the administration did not immediately give details.

Psaki said it took “quite an administrative effort” to get the two historic rivals to work together on vaccines, although talks between the two companies have been going on for months. “There is a difference between talks and progress,” he said.

The White House said Merck will dedicate two factories to the production process. One would manufacture the vaccine and the other would be responsible for putting it into vials and ensuring strict quality controls. Psaki said the Biden administration was using its powers under the Defense Production Act to help Merck retool to work in production. The news was first reported by The Washington Post.

Compared to the two-dose versions produced by Moderna and Pfizer, the J&J vaccine requires fewer resources to be distributed and administered, making it a cornerstone of US plans to release vaccines around the world, but only after Americans have been vaccinated. J & J’s vaccine can be stored for months at refrigerated temperatures, rather than frozen, and does not require patients to receive a second dose again three to four weeks later.

J&J has built a global production network which includes the manufacture of the vaccine in bulk at its factory in Janssen in the Netherlands, and with a company in the United States, Emergent BioSolutions, and another in India, Biological E. Ltd. There are other manufacturers. hired to help with later stages, such as the introduction of the vaccine in vials, in the United States, Italy, Spain and South Africa.

In the race to create vaccines against the COVID-19 disease, the three Western drugmakers who have dominated the vaccine industry for decades – Merck & Co, Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline – have been surprisingly short. Merck ended its own plans to develop a coronavirus vaccine earlier this year, finding that its candidates elicited a weaker immune system response than other vaccines. He said he would instead focus his work on developing treatments for COVID-19.

Now, amid the global clamor for more vaccine doses, these heavyweights are help manufacture doses for less experienced competitors whose vaccines have obtained the first emergency clearances from regulators.

Merck has since said it has been in talks to help other pharmaceutical companies with vaccine production, but did not say Tuesday whether more deals are imminent.

“Merck remains steadfast in its commitment to contribute to the global pandemic response and prepare for future pandemics,” the Kenilworth, NJ-based company said in a statement.

Named in honor of pioneering French biologist Louis Pasteur, Sanofi Pasteur produces more than one billion doses of vaccines annually and is a leader in pediatric, influenza and polio vaccines. It has also experienced delays with its COVID-19 vaccine candidates. While trying to resolve these issues, Sanofi has agreed to bottle and package approximately 125 million doses of the vaccine from Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, as well as approximately 12 million monthly doses of the vaccine from J&J.

GlaxoSmithKline, which manufactures vaccines against shingles, hepatitis, meningitis and many childhood diseases, has focused its efforts on combining its adjuvant technology with vaccines from competing companies. Adjuvants increase the immune system’s response to vaccines, which means that smaller doses could be used and the supply increased.

By ZEKE MILLER, LINDA A. JOHNSON and JONATHAN LEMIRE (Associated Press)

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