Secretary of State Antony Blinken today said the US is working quickly to develop a plan for global distribution of its vaccines, adding that a plan should be in place within days.
“For the vaccines that we have directly on hand, or will shortly, we are going to decide whether to do some or all that have through COVAX or how much will be done directly country to country, all of that is in the works and we’ll have a plan in place in several days,” said Blinken, speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper.
His remarks came a day after the Biden administration announced the US planned to ship millions of AstraZeneca vaccine doses overseas to help countries that are still struggling to vaccinate their populations.
“Breaking: U.S. to release 60 million AstraZeneca doses to other countries as they become available,” tweeted White House Covid-19 adviser Andy Slavitt on Monday.
Blinken said part of the delay of global distribution, for which the administration has received some criticism, is due to the US Food and Drug Administration doing due diligence to ensure the doses are safe for global distribution.
“We want to make sure that the vaccines we’ll have in our possession … are safe, so the FDA is reviewing that, so we’re a couple weeks away from that, but we’re putting in place a plan to do that,” he said.
“The thing I mostly worry about, Jake, is making sure as many people around the world as possible can get vaccinated as quickly as possible because the hard truth is none of us are safe until a vast majority are vaccinated,” Blinken added.