Feds to Purchase Additional 100 Million Doses of Pfizer’s Covid-19 Vaccine, Enough to Vaccinate Every American by June

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Pfizer and its partner BioNTech have reached an agreement with the federal government to deliver an additional 100 million doses of their Covid-19 by June, Pfizer said Wednesday.

The purchase will provide enough supply “to vaccinate every American who wants it by June 2021,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement included in Pfizer’s announcement.

The feds previously had an agreement for 100 million doses from Pfizer. The latest order brings the total number to 200 million, which will be enough for 100 million Americans to receive the two-dose vaccine.

The New York Times said Tuesday the deal included a call for the federal government to invoke the Defense Production Act to assist in providing supplies and raw materials to Pfizer for production of the vaccine. Pfizer has reportedly sought greater access to materials needed to produce the vaccine since September.

The company has sparred frequently with the Trump administration over the development and distribution of its vaccine. It was forced to “clarify” a November claim by a company executive that it did not participate in Operation Warp Speed, the federal initiative designed to speed production of a vaccine, despite taking a purchase order through the initiative worth nearly $2 billion to develop a vaccine. And in December, after federal officials faulted the company for distribution delays, Pfizer issued a statement blaming the feds for failing to provide instructions for delivery.

A total of 614,117 doses have been administered to Americans as of December 23, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The figure accounts both for the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech and a second one developed by Moderna.