Coronavirus: Joe Biden says US to have enough vaccines by end of May; Texas ends mask rule
- The president said Merck & Co will help produce rival Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid-19 jab to boost supply
- Merck had scrapped development of its own coronavirus vaccine candidates in January
US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that his administration has now secured enough coronavirus vaccine for every adult in the US to be inoculated by the end of May, as he announced that Merck & Co will help make rival Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 jab in a bid to boost production.
The president said the US government had invoked the Defence Production Act to help equip two Merck plants to make the J&J single-dose vaccine.
“One of the things that I learned when I came into office was that Johnson & Johnson was behind in manufacturing and production,” Biden said. “It simply wasn’t coming fast enough. So my team has been hard at work to accelerate that effort.”
He said the plants already making J&J’s vaccine would also step up their output, producing 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
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Joe Biden says US to have enough vaccines for every adult by end of May
An increased supply of the J&J vaccine sooner would speed the US vaccination effort considerably, because you can inoculate twice as many people with the same number of shots. The other two US-authorised vaccines produced by Pfizer Inc with partner BioNTech and Moderna Inc both require two shots a few weeks apart.