With President Biden announcing the US will donate 500 million vaccine doses to the world, is this the first step in the US's return to international leadership?
Well, the US said they were going to buy 500 million doses from Pfizer, maker of one of the mRNA vaccines developed in the United States, and send it out through the COVAX initiative to 100 countries around the globe. Separately, the G7 said that together they would donate a billion vaccine doses around the globe, but the US is obviously leading this initiative with the greatest vaccine production capabilities and the largest contribution globally. Still, the Biden administration has come under some criticism for being a little bit too slow to get these doses out the door. And the NGO community wants to see the US support a vaccine waiver, which the US has said they want to do, but now they're trying to negotiate that to allow other countries to use the IP created by Pfizer, Moderna, and others to create vaccines around the globe and drastically increase supply over the long-term.
The US has been very cautious in its approach. It wants to make sure that it has enough doses to give every adult in the US two, which is the recommended amount, and save some reserve for booster shots in case they're needed or if the virus starts coming back next summer. So, probably no matter what the US does here, it's not going to be enough for some people, but Biden is using this as an effort of vaccine diplomacy to let the world know that the US is back. This is a very different approach from the Trump administration, and this is signaling their commitment to spreading goodwill around the world.
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