The White House is flexing the muscle of the Defense Production Act using it to increase vaccine production, offer more COVID-19 testing at home, and create more personal protective equipment, officials announced Friday.
Tim Manning, national coordinator of the COVID-19 response supply chain under President Biden, said the DPA will be used to get more equipment and supplies to Pfizer so it can get the vaccines out faster.
“Right now, one of the factors limiting the increase in vaccine manufacturing is the limitation of equipment and ingredients,” Manning explained during the White House COVID working group briefing.
He said the federal government will expand the priority ratings on Pfizer’s supply contracts so they can get the material before anyone else and allow them to take more photographs.
“We are expanding Pfizer’s priority ratings … to manufacture the COVID vaccine,” said Manning, who used to work for FEMA.
“It is actions like these that will allow Pfizer to increase production and achieve its goals of delivering hundreds of millions of doses over the next few months.”
Manning said the federal government is also using the DPA to increase the supply of rapid COVID-19 testing at home by incorporating six new suppliers who will be able to deliver 61 million tests by the end of the summer.
“The country is far behind where we have to do tests, especially the quick tests at home that will allow us all to get back to normal activities like work and school,” Manning said.
Earlier this week, the working group announced a plan to bring the first COVID test home without a prescription to Americans via Australian company Ellume, and six additional suppliers are in contract negotiations now, which they will be finished in a couple of weeks, Manning said.
To reach the $ 61 million goal, the DPA will be used to help companies build new plants and build new production lines on U.S. soil, which will reduce “our vulnerabilities to supply chain disruptions.” , said Manning.
Finally, Manning announced plans to produce more surgical gloves by building plants to produce the raw materials needed for the equipment and later factories to produce them.
“We are already working to increase the availability of N95 masks for front-line workers, but another critical area of concern we hear over and over again is surgical gloves. Right now we just don’t have enough gloves, we depend almost 100%. from overseas manufacturers to export us surgical gloves from our country that protect workers from health and that is unacceptable, ”Manning said.
“By the end of the year, we will produce more than a billion nitrile gloves a month right here in America. Now we will do enough to meet half of all U.S. health care demands right here on the shores of the United States. United States “.
Manning said there are additional plans to use the DPA for programs that will allow scientists to track COVID-19 variants and see new ones, but more funding is needed to start projects.
“Congress could help a lot with this effort by approving the U.S. bailout plan,” Manning said, referring to the $ 1.9 trillion stimulus package approved by the Senate on Friday.