President Biden aims to provide 100 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine during his first 100 days in office, and his coronavirus coordinator believes manufacturing efforts are on pace to meet that goal.
Jeff Zients, tasked by Biden to run the administration’s coronavirus response, told reporters a “sufficient supply” will be available to hit the president’s target, based on manufacturing projections, CNN reported Thursday.
As far as individual states are concerned, Zients said equity will serve as the basis for how many vaccines go to what state.
“We will work to provide projections on supply,” he said in a briefing ahead of the release of the new “National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness,” CNN reported. “We hear over and over from governors and local leaders that they just don’t know what supply is coming and can’t plan.
“We will absolutely across the next days to get our arms around what’s going on, make sure that we are communicating with states and localities, so they can prepare, effectively,” Zients said.
As of Thursday, roughly 36 million doses of vaccine have been distributed in the U.S., though only about 16.5 million have been administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.