Coronavirus: US to detail ‘no strings’ global distribution plan for 80 million vaccine doses
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US would distribute vaccines ‘without political requirements’
- The Biden administration has been under pressure to share vaccines to help countries in need
“Sometime in the next week to two weeks – we will be announcing the process by which we will distribute those vaccines, what the criteria are, how we will do it,” Blinken said during his first trip as secretary of state to Latin America, which is fighting to contain Covid-19.
“We will distribute vaccines without political requirements of those receiving them.”
On Monday, Biden said his administration would send at least 20 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, on top of 60 million AstraZeneca doses he had already planned to give to other countries.
The Biden administration has been under pressure to share vaccines to help curb worsening outbreaks from India to Brazil, where health experts fear new, more contagious coronavirus variants could undermine the effectiveness of available shots.