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The White House is strengthening its defense production law muscle by using it to speed up vaccine production, provide more COVID-19 home testing and create more personal protective equipment, officials said on Friday.
Tim Manning, the national supply chain coordinator for the COVID-19 response under the leadership of President Biden, said the DPA will be used to secure more Pfizer equipment and supplies so they can distribute more vaccines. quickly.
“Right now, one of the factors limiting the increase in vaccine manufacturing is the limitation of equipment and ingredients,” Manning explained during the White House COVID task force briefing.
He said the federal government would expand the priority ratings of Pfizer’s supply contracts so that they can get the materials before anyone else and allow them to do more shots.
“We are expanding Pfizer’s priority ratings… to manufacture the COVID vaccine,” said Manning, who previously worked for FEMA.
“It is actions like these that will allow Pfizer to increase production and meet its delivery targets of hundreds of millions of doses over the coming months.”
Manning said the federal government is also using the DPA to increase the supply of rapid home COVID-19 tests by bringing in six new vendors who will be able to deliver 61 million tests by the end of the summer. .
“The country is way behind where we need to take the tests, especially the rapid home tests which will allow us all to return to normal activities like work and school,” Manning said.
Earlier this week, the task force announced a plan to offer Americans the first home-based COVID test without a prescription through Australian firm Ellume, and six other providers are currently in contract negotiations, which will will be completed in a few weeks. , Manning said.
To meet the € 61 million target, the DPA will be used to help companies build new factories and build new production lines on US soil, which will reduce “our vulnerabilities to business chain disruptions. ‘supply,’ Manning said.
Finally, Manning announced plans to produce more surgical gloves by building factories to produce the raw materials needed for the equipment, and then factories to produce them.
“We are already working to increase the availability of N95 masks for frontline workers, but surgical gloves are another critical area of concern that we hear over and over again. Right now we just don’t have enough gloves, we are almost 100% dependent on foreign manufacturers to export surgical gloves from our country that protect healthcare workers to us and this is unacceptable, ”he said. Manning said.
“By the end of the year, we will be producing over a billion nitrile gloves per month right here in America. We will now do enough to meet half of all the demands of the American health care community right here on American shores.
Manning said there are additional plans to use the DPA for programs that will allow scientists to track and see new COVID-19 variants, but more funds are needed to get the projects started.
“Congress could go a long way to help this effort by adopting the US bailout,” Manning said, referring to the $ 1.9 trillion stimulus package that was passed by the Senate on Friday.
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