US President Joe Biden highlighted this achievement in statements to the public about the US strategy to slow the spread of the new coronavirus abroad.
He said these US donations to low- and middle-income countries were higher than the rest of the world combined.
“Vaccinate America and help vaccinate the world. That’s how we’re going to defeat this case,” Biden said.
Biden announced this at a time when the number of Covid-19 infections in the United States is rising, driven by the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus. That’s why U.S. health officials last week recommended resuming face masks in some public indoor areas, even for fully vaccinated people.
Biden has promised that the United States will have a “vaccine arsenal” for the world, but the 110 million doses donated by the United States, mostly through the global vaccine program COVAX, are a small part of what the world needs.
The White House announced on Tuesday that the United States would start delivering 500 million at the end of August Pfizer a dose of the vaccine promised to be donated to 100 low-income countries by June 2022.
110 million donations come from a surplus of vaccine stocks in the United States as the country’s vaccination rate has slowed. About 90 million Americans at the age of 12 still need one dose of the vaccine.
Biden had promised to deliver more than 80 million doses abroad by the end of June, but was only able to deliver on a small part of what was promised, due to logistical and regulatory barriers in the recipient countries. The pace of deliveries accelerated significantly in July.
According to Biden’s plan, about 75% of the doses will be donated to the United States through COVAX, while the rest will be sent to US partners and allies.
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