December 29th – Celine Gounder, a coronavirus adviser to Biden’s transition team, said that the U.S. government-designate plans to invoke the wartime Defense Production Act to increase the production of coronavirus vaccines after taking office next month.
Good said in an interview with the U.S. consumer news and business channel Squawk Box on the 28th local time that people will see the incoming government invoke the Defense Production Act.
Good said that the purpose of this is to ensure that personal protective equipment, testing capacity and vaccine raw materials are adequately supplied.
According to the report, the Biden team is worried that the vaccine launch has not reached the level promised by the current U.S. government. The White House has promised to vaccinate 20 million Americans by the end of 2020.
However, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that as of December 26, the number of people who had been vaccinated the first dose of the vaccine was less than 2 million.
The Defense Production Act, which allows the President of the United States to mandate companies to prioritize production for the sake of national security, can help ensure that manufacturers produce ingredients and specialized products needed for a coronavirus vaccine.
Biden’s team has been weighing whether to invoke the law to produce a vaccine, NBC News reported last week.
The White House recently turned to the Defense Production Act last week to ensure that Pfizer can get enough specialized supplies to meet its goal of producing another 100 million doses of the novel coronavirus vaccine by July 7, 2021.
In April 2020, the White House also invoked a wartime bill to pressure 3M and other manufacturers to increase the production and supply of N95 masks, ventilators and other protective equipment.
