Joe Biden to Ship U.S.-Licensed Vaccines Overseas for the First Time

President Biden, this Monday in the White House.LEAH MILLIS / Reuters

President Joe Biden announced Monday that the United States will ship 20 million doses of coronavirus vaccines abroad by the end of June. "America will never be safe as long as the rest of the world is not vaccinated," said the Democrat. The drugs it will distribute are from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, which translates into the first donation of vaccines against COVID-19 approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA, in its acronym in English) for home use. Washington has already pledged to deliver up to 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, pending approval from US health authorities.

Infections have decreased in all 50 states for the first time since the pandemic began, as reported by the president.

Now that nearly half of the US population has received at least one dose and 120 million are on full treatment, the Biden Administration intends to focus more efforts on helping territories that are far from having controlled the pandemic, such as India and Brazil.

To achieve his mission, the president has put Jeff Zients, White House coronavirus coordinator in charge on Monday.

Zients will work with Gayle Smith, head of "vaccine diplomacy" at the State Department and with the National Security Council, among other government agencies.

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Several international organizations have been pressing for months for Washington to donate part of its leftover vaccines to countries where the pandemic is out of control or do not have enough vaccines to protect their population. The powerhouse is already cherishing the new normal due to the successful vaccination campaign. Last week, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in its acronym in English) marked a turning point by authorizing all those who have completed the process of vaccination against the covid to do without the mask both in the air free as in closed places, and not comply with the recommendation to keep the physical distance, even when they are in crowds.

The Administration, state governments, private and non-profit companies have turned to promoting vaccination.

The Democratic president hopes that more than 70% of the American adult population will have received at least one dose of the vaccine before July 4, so that in addition to celebrating Independence Day in the United States, the population will also celebrate "the day of the independence of the virus ”.

In less than four months, the country has managed to go from 5.5% of adults vaccinated with at least one dose to about 60%.

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