It appears that the federal government is leaving it to drugmakers to figure out how to speed production of coronavirus vaccines.
U.S. Surgeon Jerome Adams on Saturday said that the federal government has invoked the Defense Production Act hundreds of times in the fight against coronavirus. But it is not using it to speed production of two vaccines that now have been approved, he said.
In a joint press with Gov. Mike DeWine during a visit to Columbus, Adams sought to assure the public that the two vaccines so far approved — one produced by Pfizer and the other by Moderna — are safe and effective, so people should get them when they become available. But it’s hard to know when that will be.
Adams, a member of President Donald Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force, didn’t answer directly when asked if he’d talked to Trump or Pence using the Defense Production Act or some other federal authority to scale up production of the approved vaccines, both of which were more than 90% effective in clinical trials.
“These vaccine companies have every interest in the world to make as much vaccine as they can because they want this pandemic to end and the federal government is purchasing these vaccines,” he said. “And I can tell you with every degree of certainty from being on the coronavirus task force that we are doing everything we can to produce these vaccines as quickly as possible.”
Adams noted that the United States was on track to vaccinate 20 million Americans by the end of the year.
But last summer, before Pfizer’s vaccine received emergency approval, the Trump administration passed on the company’s offer to allow the government to lock in hundreds of millions more doses at no risk. The European Union subsequently locked in 200 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, meaning that the company might have to fulfill those orders before allocating any more to the United States.
Adams’ statements Saturday come even as the Trump administration and Pfizer have been feuding publicly over whether Pfizer is experiencing production bottlenecks or whether the government itself is hampering Pfizer’s efforts to ship the vaccine.
On Saturday, DeWine and Adams were asked about vaccine shipments that had fallen short of earlier projections. Adams said that because so many factors are involved, Ohioans should expect shipments that sometimes exceed projections and sometimes fall short of them.
It might seem that the Defense Production Act is just the mechanism to ensure that the maximum amount of vaccines make it into American arms and bring the pandemic under control as quickly as possible.
But Adams insisted it wasn’t necessary.
“We are leveraging it where we need to use it, but at some point, if they are working at max production and there’s just no more supply to input into the process, then saying you’re using the Defense Production Act is literally just saying you’re going to use the Defense Production Act,” he said.
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