PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) -- President Joe Biden says the federal government will boost the COVID-19 vaccine supply for states as soon as next week and buy 200 million more doses. The goal, he said, would be to have enough doses to vaccinate 300 million Americans by the late summer or early fall.
The president made the announcement from the White House on Tuesday.
"This is an aggregate plan that doesn’t leave anything on the table -- or anything to chance -- as we’ve seen happen in the past year. I’ve said before, this is a wartime effort," Biden said.
Biden said the U.S. would bump up the weekly vaccine supply for states, tribes and territories from 8.6 million doses to at least 10 million. He also said state officials would get a three-week forecast of the amount of vaccine they would have access to rather than go week by week, which is what they have been doing.
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“This is gonna help make sure governors, mayors and local leaders have greater certainty around supply so they can carry out their plans to vaccinate as many people as possible.”
The President is also sticking with his goal of having 100 million shots in his first 100 days in office. Past that, to help get the pandemic under control, he said the federal government is looking to buy 200 million more doses, split evenly between Pfizer and Moderna, and have access to that extra supply by the summer. That, on top of the 400 million doses secured by the Trump administration, would mean there would be enough doses for essentially every American who wants to be vaccinated.
“I hope you’re all asking me by the end of the summer that you have too much vaccine left over. You have too much equipment left over. That’s not my worry. I hope that becomes the problem,” Biden said.
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According to figures from Johns Hopkins University, there have been 25 million confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. and the death toll is 425,227. President Biden on Tuesday said there have been more Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. in the past year than during World War II. That is accurate as the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs lists 405,399 military deaths in the war from 1941 to 1945.