Biden got the hum of vaccine rollout, with help from Trump

Officials also negotiated an unusual partnership between Johnson & Johnson and a long-time competitor, Merck & Co. The Trump administration has repeatedly explored the use of Merck’s factories to boost vaccine production, but is not never reached an agreement.

Mr Zients, the pandemic adviser, said on Sunday that the new alliance had helped the Biden administration set its new May target. In fact, however, Merck will likely only bottle a few million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine by then, according to people familiar with how it works. The main benefit of the partnership will come later in the year, when Merck retools a massive plant capable of producing up to 100 million doses of vaccine per month, they said.

Beyond the nuts and bolts of production, Mr. Biden’s White House has run an entirely different messaging campaign than Mr. Trump’s: under-promise, then try to over-deliver. Mr Trump regularly bragged about impending accomplishments, including a vaccine rollout before election day, for falling short. In contrast, health experts complained, at least initially, that Mr Biden was being too cautious.

When the vaccine rollout began in December, Mr Biden pledged his administration would average a million shots a day during his first 100 days in office – enough to vaccinate 50 million people by the end of the year. March.

After less than a week in office, he increased the target by 50%, to 1.5 million shots per day. The country surpassed Mr Biden’s original target about a month ahead of schedule and is now taking an average of 2.17 million doses per day.

Carefully calibrated goals “avoid losses,” said David Axelrod, senior strategist for President Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns. “They must certainly have learned that lesson from watching Trump.

“Internally you are heading towards the highest goal possible. On the outside, you set a floor that you are reasonably sure you can reach, ”he said.

Katie Rogers and Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett and Susan Beachy contributed to the research.