U.S. Covid-19 cases are up around 11 percent over the previous week – almost entirely among people who have not been vaccinated – officials said on July 8, as the highly infectious Delta variant becomes the dominant Covid-19 strain in the country.
The United States will likely fail to meet President Joe Biden’s goal to deliver at least one Covid-19 vaccine to 70 percent of adults by July 4, officials said on June 22 and warned the Delta variant first found in India poses the greatest threat to U.S. eradication efforts.
The White House laid out a plan to share 55 million U.S. Covid-19 vaccine doses globally, with roughly 75 percent of the doses allocated to Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and Africa through the COVAX international vaccine-sharing program.
Johnson & Johnson said on June 10 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration extended the shelf life of the company’s single-shot Covid-19 vaccine from three months to four-and-a-half months, as millions of unused doses nationwide near expiration.
Eric Lander, founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and science adviser for the White House, said in an interview that he wants to have an available vaccine that can fight the next pandemic in about 100 days after recognizing the initial outbreak.
A deal on an intellectual property waiver for Covid-19 vaccines at the World Trade Organization (WTO) was no closer to acceptance on May 31 despite Washington’s backing, due to expected scepticism about a new draft, sources close to the talks told Reuters.
Uber Technologies Inc. and rival Lyft Inc. on May 24 launched Covid-19 vaccine ride programs in partnership with the White House, offering Americans free rides or discounts for their trips to and from a vaccination site.
President Joe Biden will send at least 20 million more Covid-19 vaccine doses abroad by the end of June, marking the first time the United States is sharing vaccines authorized for domestic use.
The Biden administration is releasing $7.4 billion to bolster the nation’s healthcare workforce amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and to prepare for future epidemics and health challenges, the White House said in a statement on May 13.
The United States will start to share up to 60 million doses of AstraZeneca Plc’s coronavirus vaccine with other countries as soon as the next few weeks, the White House said on April 26.
