{"id":1325,"date":"2022-03-23T05:52:43","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T05:52:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linksus.net\/white-house-officials-say-u-s-has-exhausted-funds-to-buy-potential-fourth-vaccine-dose-for-all-americans-the-washington-post\/"},"modified":"2022-03-23T05:52:43","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T05:52:43","slug":"white-house-officials-say-u-s-has-exhausted-funds-to-buy-potential-fourth-vaccine-dose-for-all-americans-the-washington-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/2022\/03\/23\/white-house-officials-say-u-s-has-exhausted-funds-to-buy-potential-fourth-vaccine-dose-for-all-americans-the-washington-post\/","title":{"rendered":"White House officials say U.S. has exhausted funds to buy potential fourth vaccine dose for all Americans – The Washington Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Biden administration lacks the funds to purchase a potential fourth coronavirus<\/a> vaccine dose for everyone, even as other countries place their own orders and potentially move ahead of the United States in line, administration officials said Monday.
Federal officials have secured enough doses to cover a fourth shot for Americans age 65 and older as well as the initial regimen for children under 5, should regulators determine those shots are necessary, said three officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to detail funding decisions. But the officials say they cannot place advance orders for additional vaccine doses for those in other age groups, unless Congress passes a stalled $15 billion funding package.
\u201cRight now, we don\u2019t have enough money for fourth doses, if they\u2019re called for,\u201d White House coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients said on a forthcoming episode of \u201cIn The Bubble With Andy Slavitt,\u201d<\/a> which was recorded Monday and shared with The Washington Post. \u201cWe don\u2019t have the funding, if we were to need a variant-specific vaccine in the future.\u201d
Federal regulators and health officials have not yet determined whether a fourth shot is needed, and some experts question whether the extra dose will be necessary to boost protection for the entire population.
But administration officials said placing orders for additional doses ahead of time \u2014 rather than waiting for the United States to be swamped by another wave of the virus \u2014 was imperative and a key lesson from the pandemic\u2019s past two years. They also noted that the fast-moving omicron variant evaded some immune protection conferred by existing vaccines, demonstrating the need to invest in more targeted shots that could better fend off omicron and potential future variants.
\u201cVaccines don\u2019t just appear when you snap your fingers and say, \u2018Okay, I want the vaccine.\u2019 We\u2019ve got to make it,\u201d a senior administration official said. \u201cAnd this year, it\u2019s going to be more complicated because there\u2019s a very significant chance \u2014 although we\u2019re still waiting for data \u2014 that the vaccines are going to need to be tweaked to cover omicron.\u201d
Analysts at Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health research organization, independently confirmed that the United States would need to purchase hundreds of millions of additional doses to ensure that every American could receive four shots, if necessary, said Jen Kates, who leads global health policy for the organization and previewed the forthcoming analysis.
\u201cIf their policy goal is to have enough doses available to provide a fourth dose to everyone, there are not enough doses purchased. They will run out of supply,\u201d Kates said.
Kates said her team reviewed several alternate scenarios, such as lowering its projection to 70 percent of Americans who would be vaccinated with four doses, rather than 100 percent. Even with that lower target, \u201cthere\u2019s not enough\u201d doses already purchased, Kates said, adding that the full analysis would be published later this week.
About 65 percent of Americans, or roughly 217 million people, are considered \u201cfully vaccinated\u201d by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to federal data<\/a>, and about 200 million of those people have received two doses of the mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna. Meanwhile, roughly 97 million Americans have received a booster shot, which is about 29 percent of the entire U.S. population, according to federal data.
Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna last week filed<\/a> for emergency authorization of second booster shots of their coronavirus vaccines \u2014 <\/b>with Pfizer and BioNTech targeting people 65 and older, while Moderna sought permission for all adults \u2014 saying the shots would bolster waning immunity that occurs several months after the first booster.
The companies also are pursuing coronavirus vaccines for children under 5, although federal regulators have yet to authorize those shots, as they await additional data about their effectiveness.
Pfizer and Moderna did not respond to requests for comment about the status of the <\/b>Biden administration\u2019s vaccine orders.
White House officials said they have grown concerned that vaccine manufacturers will prioritize orders already being placed by other countries \u2014 such as Japan, Colombia, Vietnam and the Philippines, which collectively plan to <\/b>buy, or have already bought, more than 200 million additional doses of mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna this year, according to an internal tracker kept by administration officials and shared with The Post. Some countries \u2014 such as Chile, which recently purchased 2 million Moderna doses \u2014 also are beginning to administer fourth doses<\/a>.
Public health experts agree that waiting to place vaccine orders could delay shipments to the United States, citing a 2020 <\/b>episode when Trump administration officials turned down an opportunity to buy an additional 100 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Although Trump officials later changed their minds<\/a>, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla warned them the United States would have to wait more than six months for the additional doses to be shipped, he <\/b>wrote in his new memoir, \u201cMoonshot: Inside Pfizer\u2019s Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible<\/a>.\u201d
\u201c[W]e would have had to take supplies from Canada, Japan, and Latin American countries, all of which had placed their orders earlier than the U.S.,\u201d Bourla wrote in a book excerpt published by Forbes<\/a>, adding that then-White House senior adviser Jared Kushner called him to insist that Pfizer should immediately prioritize the United States\u2019 order. \u201cI refused to do that, and the debate between the two of us became heated.\u201d
Bourla said manufacturing \u201cmiracles\u201d allowed Pfizer to ultimately meet its commitments to other countries while accommodating the additional U.S. order.
While the omicron wave has been in retreat for two months in the United States \u2014 with confirmed cases plunging from more than 700,000 per day in mid-January to about 32,000 per day now, according to The Post\u2019s rolling seven-day average<\/a> \u2014 public health experts warn that cases are <\/b>likely to go back up<\/a>, citing a spike across Europe caused by BA.2, a subvariant of omicron.
But those warnings have yet to move congressional leaders, who are still debating <\/b>the size of a coronavirus funding package and how to pay for it. Key Republicans <\/b>said they still wanted a fuller accounting of the trillions of dollars the administration has already spent on the coronavirus response \u2014 and are questioning<\/a> the administration\u2019s call to action last week.
\u201cThe basic thing we ought to figure out is, is there a need?\u201d said Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee. \u201cSecondly, if there\u2019s a need, where\u2019s all the money we appropriated?\u201d
\u201cThe administration needs to take the money that\u2019s been appropriated and use that to prepare for what might be coming down the road, if there are new variants that affect a lot of Americans,\u201d added Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on Tuesday, who has emerged as a top skeptic of the White House\u2019s request for<\/a> additional funds.
Other Republicans said they were still waiting on detailed answers to questions around critical supplies.
\u201cBefore I know how many they own today \u2014 how many vaccines, how many tests, how many therapeutics \u2014 it\u2019s hard for me to assess whether they need more,\u201d said Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Burr said he\u2019s talked with the administration \u201cconstantly,\u201d particularly Zients, the White House coronavirus coordinator who is among the senior officials pressing their funding <\/b>case on Capitol Hill, as well as in public forums.
\u201cNinety-three percent of the money that was allocated for covid response \u2014 direct covid response \u2014 has been spent. So there\u2019s very little left,\u201d Zients said on the forthcoming podcast with Slavitt, a former White House senior adviser on coronavirus response. \u201cThe remaining funds are for areas like \u2026 medical care for veterans, or FEMA disaster relief. So we don\u2019t have good resources to draw on from the prior allocated funds, and we need to make sure that this gets funded. So it\u2019s up to Congress to either pass it on an emergency basis without offsets, or find viable offsets.\u201d<\/p>\n

White House officials also have warned that they will soon be unable to purchase additional therapeutics, including monoclonal antibodies, a key tool to help those who become infected, especially the immunocompromised and others at high risk.
But with House lawmakers in their home districts this week and unable to agree with Senate leaders on how to finance any package, there is no sign the stalemate will end soon.<\/p>\n

Top lawmakers had initially planned to pay for more than $15 billion in coronavirus aid as part of a long-term bill to fund the government. But some House Democrats rejected <\/b>one of the financing mechanisms, which would have clawed back funds set aside for state governments to address coronavirus-related needs. The pushback ultimately forced House Democratic leaders to strip the coronavirus aid from the bill<\/a>. A new financing mechanism hasn\u2019t been settled on, as Democrats attempt to plot a path forward.
\u201cI don\u2019t know that those conversations have been held just yet,\u201d Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the Senate\u2019s top GOP vote counter, said Monday. \u201cBut my assumption is, if something\u2019s going to move, they\u2019d have to figure that out.\u201d
\u201cThe House is working to reach agreement with the Senate on acceptable offsets,\u201d a senior Democratic aide said.
Kates, the Kaiser Family Foundation expert, said the challenge of preparing for the pandemic\u2019s next phase is complicated by the virus\u2019s unpredictability. \u201cIt\u2019s possible in three months, we\u2019ll all be saying, \u2018Hey, we weren\u2019t prepared, but fortunately, we\u2019re in good shape.\u2019 Or we could really be staring down something quite ominous,\u201d she said. \u201cWe just don\u2019t know.\u201d
The latest: <\/b>A surge in infections in Western Europe<\/a>, fueled by the subvariant of omicron known as BA.2, has experts and health authorities on alert for another wave of the pandemic in the United States. See the latest coronavirus numbers<\/a> and how the omicron variant has spread across the world<\/a>.
At-home tests:<\/b> Here\u2019s how to use at-home covid tests, where to find them and how they differ from PCR tests<\/a>.
Mask guidance:<\/b> The CDC has eased mask recommendations<\/a> for the vast majority of the country. The change followed a relaxation of restrictions by most Democratic governors responding to nosediving case counts and public pressure.
For the latest news, <\/i>sign up for our free newsletter<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

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The Biden administration lacks the funds to purchase a potential fourth coronavirus vaccine dose for everyone, even as other countries place their own orders and potentially move ahead of the United States in line, administration officials said Monday.Federal officials have secured enough doses to cover a fourth shot for Americans age 65 and older as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":869,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/869"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}