US secures an additional 100 million doses of Pfizer vaccine… “80% vaccination by July”

Donald Trump’s US administration has secured an additional 100 million doses (one dose) of the novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19) vaccine from Pfizer. In order to prevent the’supply cliff’, which will be short of vaccines in the second quarter of next year, it has decided to use the automatic display method.

The Trump administration and US pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced on the 23rd (local time) that they had signed a contract to supply 100 million doses of vaccine by the end of July next year.

The US Department of Defense said in a press release that day, “Pfizer will supply 70 million doses of vaccine in the second quarter of next year (April to June) and 30 million doses by July.”

In a press release, “The US government has ordered an additional 100 million doses of vaccine to provide a total of 200 million doses,” said Pfizer. “If the supply is completed on July 31, 100 million people in the United States will be vaccinated against Pfizer.” Said.

U.S. biotechnology company Modena will also supply vaccines to the U.S. administration at 200 million doses in the first and second quarters of next year. Combining Pfizer and Modena vaccine, the Trump administration will secure a total of 400 million doses by July next year. That’s enough for 200 million people.

It is expected that if 200 million people, or 77% of the 260 million people subject to vaccination, excluding children and adolescents get vaccinated, the conditions for the formation of’collective immunity’ in summer.

Anthony Pouch, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a media interview on the day, “If you do well (vaccinated), 70-85% of the population will be vaccinated by the middle or the end of next summer.” “This will be produced.”

The Trump administration has been negotiating with Pfizer to purchase additional vaccines over the past month. However, Pfizer said it was difficult to deliver the vaccine in the second quarter that the Trump administration wanted due to the lack of raw materials for vaccine production.

Accordingly, the Trump administration decided to activate the Defense Goods Production Act (DPA) enacted during the Korean War to help Pfizer smoothly secure nine special products necessary for vaccine manufacturing.

The DPA could force the federal government to demand the production of strategic goods from private companies, and to prioritize the supply of the goods produced to support companies such as Pfizer.

The Trump administration initiated the DPA in April to produce masks and oxygen respirators to some companies, including General Motors, but this is the first time that DPA has been applied to vaccine production.

Products produced by triggering DPA are generally regarded as’asset’ from the viewpoint of national security, and exports are prohibited for a certain period of time. However, in this contract, neither sides did not comment on this.

US media such as the Washington Post (WP) and the New York Times (NYT) assessed that a contract to purchase additional Pfizer vaccines was signed, thereby avoiding the vaccine “cliff” that would come in the first half of next year.

Pfizer said in a press release that day, “The US government will pay 1.95 billion dollars (about 2.5 trillion won) for additional vaccine purchases.” The unit price per dose of vaccine is $19.5. These are the same conditions as when the United States first signed a 100 million dose contract with Pfizer in July.

However, the European Union (EU) was reported to have paid $14.5 for a dose of vaccine to Pfizer, causing controversy over the price difference. According to the New York Times (NYT), EU officials recently posted on Twitter that they had purchased the Pfizer vaccine for $14.5 per dose and immediately deleted it.

The EU signed a contract to purchase a total of 200 million dose vaccines with Pfizer in November. The total purchase quantity is the same, but the EU ordered 200 million doses at a time, and the US ordered 100 million doses each in July and December.

In response, Pfizer said it would set the price based on the order quantity and delivery date, but did not provide a detailed explanation. Pfizer did not mention the price in the press release of the vaccine purchase contract with the EU distributed on the 11th of last month.

Washington = Correspondent Park Hyun-young [email protected]