The NPR Politics Podcast - There Will Be Enough Vaccine Doses For Every US Adult By May, Biden Says

Episode Date: March 3, 2021

President Biden announced yesterday an accelerated vaccination timeline in the United States, but some states are already moving to fully reopen—a move public health experts warn could lead to deadly mutations and a dangerous backslide.This episode: White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe, pharmaceuticals correspondent Sydney Lupkin, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hello, I'm Alice from Queensland, Australia. Today is my first day of school. This podcast was recorded at... Oh my goodness! This podcast was recorded at 1.42pm on March 3rd, 2021, and it is Wednesday. Things may have changed at the time you hear this. Okay, here's the show.

Okay, here's the show. Okay, here's the show. That's cute. Oh my gosh, thank you so much. That is a wonderful way to start a Wednesday podcast taping. And have a great day of school. I'm so excited. And my son's supposed to be going to school soon. He's not very excited about it, but it's okay. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House.

I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. So President Biden announced yesterday that by the end of May, there should be enough vaccine doses for every American adult. I'm pleased to announce today as a consequence of the stepped up process that I've ordered and just outlined, this country will have enough vaccine supply, I'll say it again, for every adult in America by the end of May. By the end of May. That's progress. Important progress. This came the same day that Texas and Mississippi announced they would no longer require masks and that businesses would be allowed to operate at 100 percent capacity. There are a lot of questions about how these timelines will play out, which is why we've got NPR's pharmaceuticals correspondent, Sydney Lupkin,

here with us. Hey, Sydney. Hello. Thanks so much for joining us. Let's start, Sydney, with Biden's announcement. And we should just say right now that even though he's talking about May and having enough doses for every adult, that doesn't mean that every adult will have a shot in their arm by the end of May, right? That's right. So though this is really great news, President Biden is not actually promising to vaccinate everyone by the end of May. He's saying that Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson will deliver enough doses to vaccinate every U.S. adult by the end of May. A lot has to happen between when a dose is manufactured and delivered and when it gets into people's arms. So as of today, for example,

there have been 102 million doses distributed and not quite 79 million doses administered. So there is a lag because logistically there are just more steps. And so they're able to do this or make this new projection about, you know, having enough vaccines for every adult in America by the end of May because of this deal that was struck with these pharmaceutical companies with and it's with Merck and with Johnson and Johnson and their competitors. Right. That's true. But let's actually back up just a little bit. So it's a bunch of deals. First, he's altered deals. So already under the Trump administration, there were deals to buy different allotments of vaccine in 100 million doses each, both for Pfizer and Moderna. And they had these sort of quarterly deadlines. The first 100 million doses for each Pfizer and

Moderna needed to be delivered by the end of March. That's not changing. And then there were second deadlines, and they needed to come in by the end of June. Again, another 100 million doses each. But then in the Biden administration, within the last couple of weeks, we've learned that actually those second allotments are not going to be coming in by the end of June. They're going to be in by the end of May. So keeping in mind that Pfizer and Moderna each have two dose vaccines, we would have enough doses for 200 million people

by May. And then by the end of July, this third allocation, we'd have enough for 300 million people, all U.S. adults, by the end of July. So then you have Johnson & Johnson, which has a single dose vaccine and has become the third authorized U.S. coronavirus COVID-19 vaccine to be authorized in the U.S. That happened over the weekend. Its original contract said that it would deliver 100 million vaccines by the end of June. And now President Biden says that they'll arrive by the end of May. So that's how we're expected to have enough vaccines for 300 million people in the U.S. by the end of May. It is worth noting, though, that again, they're not saying that these doses will be administered, just that they'll be delivered. Yes, you're absolutely right. And Biden has been very careful to say that having the vaccines available is different than saying anyone who wants a vaccine can get

one by the end of May. But I don't know if people are listening to the nuance. I think when people hear that the deadline is moved up from July to May, they expect that if they want one at the end of May, they're going to be able to get one. I think that's the expectation that's been created. Former President Trump faced some criticism because of this thing called the Defense Production Act, which allows the government to kind of lean in on companies and force them to do certain things in a national emergency. People complained he didn't use it enough. Some of this stuff that's happening with these pharmaceutical companies is because of the use of the Defense Production Act, right, Mar? That's right. Trump did use it, but Biden seems to be

using it more aggressively and more widely. Basically, as you said, it gives the government the power to compel companies to do things. For instance, it's going to help accelerate the vaccine delivery of the Johnson & Johnson vaccines because it's going to get Merck, a company that didn't produce its own vaccines, to help produce those. So there's no doubt that Joe Biden is trying to bring every tool that the government has to bear on this problem. Though I do want to add that even though there is a power under the Defense Production Act that can force Merck to do work for Johnson & Johnson, that wasn't the use here exactly. They didn't have to force Merck to do it, but they are using the powers of the act to give Merck money to help upgrade its facilities and also give it something called a rated order,

which means that basically it can be prioritized when it wants to order, say, a piece of equipment that it needs to do the vaccine production that maybe another company makes. But there are a bunch of other companies that are also, you know, in line to get that piece of equipment. But what the defense production does and the way that both the Biden and Trump administrations have mostly been using it, is to basically just get vaccine makers and vaccine production to the front of the line. So if there are other people ahead in line in front of me, and I'm Moderna, and I need this ingredient or this piece of equipment, I get to go to the front of the line. Mara, you pointed out something when we were talking before the podcast that I want to make sure that we talk about right now.

It's the fact that not only did Biden make this announcement about, you know, that we'll have all these vaccine doses available by the end of May, but he also said that teachers should get priority. Yeah, opening schools is the single biggest symbol of the economy getting back to normal, not to mention the incredible stress that having kids out of school or in virtual school has put on parents. This is something that everyone wants. And for the president to use his bully pulpit to say, I'm encouraging states to put teachers at the front of the line to get them vaccinated so we can open schools even faster, I think is really important. And I think that's just as important as moving the vaccine date up from July to May. Because Republicans have really seized on this ideas of reopening schools. Yeah, because Republicans have been hammering Biden and the Democrats saying that they that Democrats don't want schools to open. They're siding with the teachers unions who don't want school to open. Actually, teachers unions in many states have been pushing for schools to open.

They want to get vaccines for their members, obviously, for teachers, which is happening. So that's become a political flashpoint. How fast can we open schools and how safely? But I think that clearly the Biden administration is taking a big move to show that it wants to open schools. The teachers unions in many states are saying, so do we. We just want to get teachers vaccines, too. All right. We're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll talk about Texas and Mississippi and about their own aggressive timelines. Some days reading a bunch of headlines just isn't enough. You need to let the news sink in.

On Consider This, NPR's new daily news podcast, we can help you do that. Each day in about 10 minutes, you can find out not just what happened, but why and what it means. Consider this. New episodes every weekday afternoon from NPR. And we're back. Texas and Mississippi governors announced yesterday that they will no longer require masks and that businesses can return to a 100% occupancy. For Texas, that's going to start next Wednesday. For Mississippi, it starts today. Sydney, we've seen a decline in the number of COVID cases, although there is some concern that the seven-day average is rising again, right? Yeah, I mean, the cases and deaths have gone down. And that obviously is, you know,

positive news. But they are slowly starting to tick back up again. In the last seven days, cases have gone up 3.5% over the previous week, and deaths have gone up 2.2%. And that's worrisome because the variant strain first identified in the UK is expected to become the dominant strain in the United States sometime this month. And that variant is more contagious. And perhaps, though the jury's sort of still out on the science of this, but perhaps it is also more deadly. So the CDC and other public health figures are worried that it's about to kind of wipe out all our progress. So they're urging vigilance. So I think that it's definitely a concern that there are places that are considering doing the opposite. adults by the end of May. If you do start getting a good amount of U.S. adults vaccinated, at what point would you be able to lift these restrictions without major concern about it being risky,

I guess, is the question. When can you start going back to restaurants and doing all of these things? You know, that is a good question. And I think because of sort of the things that we were talking about earlier, that we're still going to be wearing masks and taking precautions, even after people are vaccinated. I think that things will start to lift sort of slowly, but I mean, I think we're going to be wearing masks to be careful for a while. And that, you know, is because we we don't want a variant that renders the vaccine useless to take hold. In states like California, where there have been tighter restrictions, but but fewer deaths per capita, the governor right now, the California governor is facing a recall. But in some places like North Dakota, which has now, the California governor, is facing a recall.

But in some places like North Dakota, which has some of the least restrictions, but a lot of deaths, the governor seems as popular as ever. What about the, it seems like the political consequences of this are very complicated. Absolutely. This has been a very complicated situation for governors. It's hard to be rewarded politically for the bad thing that you prevented from happening. I mean, people just don't think that way. Now, in California, there were restrictions. There was a lot of anger about them. Some people felt they weren't being applied in a fair manner. There also was the story about the governor who went out for a very fancy dinner without a mask, which is friends. That didn't help him either. He's facing a recall. There is

no indication that that recall will be successful yet. But there's no doubt that the restrictions, first and foremost, mask wearing became a culture war flashpoint. And if you're in a red state, the most politically popular thing you can do, like if you're the governor of Texas who's just botched a winter storm that caused huge blackouts, the best political thing you can do is to say, I am for totally opening up everything right now. Over time, I don't know how the politics of this will settle out, but right now it's an easy place, especially for red state governors to land. But the thing is, there can be long term consequences for these actions. All right, that's a wrap for today. Thank you so much for joining us, Sydney. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate being here. So we'll be back tomorrow with a look at how voting rights are shifting across the country after a record number of mail-in ballots in 2020. I'm Aisha Roscoe. I cover

the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.