President Joe Biden said Tuesday that there will be enough coronavirus vaccines for 300 million Americans by the end of May, Axios reports.
- This is two months ahead of Biden’s original prediction for all adults to receive a vaccine, which was July.
- However, this doesn’t mean all the doses will be administered by May. The vaccines will simply be available at that point in time.
- “That’s progress,” Biden said Tuesday, according to CNN.
Context:
The announcement came as Biden revealed competitors Merck and Johnson & Johnson would form a new partnership to provide more COVID-19 vaccinations and distribution methods, which I wrote about before.
Officials told The Washington Post that Johnson & Johnson had fallen behind with COVID-19 vaccine production. But the deal with Merck, a massive vaccine developer, will help create more doses to help all Americans become vaccinated against the novel coronavirus, according to The Washington Post.
The Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine was recently approved for widespread emergency distribution, making it the third coronavirus vaccine available to Americans, as I wrote for the Deseret News.
Currently, Moderna and Pfizer are the main vaccines — and they require two shots. Meanwhile, the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine requires one dose. Shots from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are expected to start being released this week, per NPR.