Biden has got a bit of an issue.
It turns out the Trump adminstration have already fucked him over on this. Pfizer offered the US a massive order of vaccine doses, but Trump turned it down. The EU took the available order instead. The US have 200 million doses to be supplied by end March - enough to vaccinate 100 million
But then they hit a problem. With Pfizer already reporting delivery delays as they have to reduce production temporarily to increase their capacity (much to the annoyance of the EU who are most affected) this means the US is at serious risk will struggle to get delivery of any subsequent orders in significant quantity of vaccinations until nearly June now. They will only have Moderna available.
I'm sure this can probably be brought forward slightly if Biden throws the kitchen sink at the problem but its a really big issue. Trump just didn't put in a big enough order. With that in mind Biden has got a bigger headache than it appears.
www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/01/15/trump-vaccine-reserve-used-up/
Vaccine reserve was exhausted when Trump administration vowed to release it, dashing hopes of expanded access
States were anticipating a windfall after federal officials said they would stop holding back second doses. But the approach had already changed, and no stockpile exists.
When Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced this week that the federal government would begin releasing coronavirus vaccine doses that had been held in reserve for second shots, no such reserve existed, according to state and federal officials briefed on distribution plans. The Trump administration had already begun shipping out what was available, starting at the end of December, taking second doses for the two-dose regimen directly off the manufacturing line.
Now, health officials across the country who had anticipated their extremely limited vaccine supply as much as doubling beginning next week are confronting the reality that their allocations will remain largely flat, dashing hopes of dramatically expanding access for millions of elderly people and those with high-risk medical conditions. Health officials in some cities and states were informed in recent days about the reality of the situation, while others were still in the dark Friday.
That means Biden faces the likelihood of having to make a choice of making a similar decision to the UK and delay second doses, or slow the programme down and potentially have a couple of months in April / May were availability of the vaccine is extremely low.
This does however put the UK in an interesting position. Our pfizer supply might be impacted slightly by the production issues but because we cracked on we have already recieved a large amount of our order and its already been delivered. And unlike the US and EU who have yet to approve it, we still have Oxford.
Its a story worth watching out for. How will it be mitigated? Will there be further delays to the rest of the world with Biden elbowing his way back to the front of the queue?