Biden will host a vaccine at the White House instead of Baltimore

President BidenJoe Biden: Lawyers and activists remember civil rights icons to mark “Bloody Sunday.” Fauci predicts high school students will receive coronavirus vaccines this fall. will meet Wednesday with Johnson & Johnson and Merck executives at the White House, eliminating a planned trip to Baltimore to highlight a new partnership between the two rivals on vaccine production.

White House Press Secretary Jen PsakiJen Psaki Gov. Mississippi defends end of term mask The border crisis creates new risks for Biden Cruz who puts Biden CIA candidate MORE he initially told reporters last week that Biden would travel to Baltimore for an event to denote the collaboration after the two pharmaceutical giants reached an agreement on vaccine production. Psaki confirmed Monday that the meeting will take place in the White House, although he did not want to delve into the reason for the change.

“We just felt it was a better place to hold the meeting,” he said. “But he will look forward to discussing with them ways to work to expedite the supply and distribution of vaccines to the American people.”

The Baltimore event was scheduled to take place at Emergent BioSolutions Inc. But the company has come under scrutiny after the New York Times reported Saturday that the federal government spent nearly half of its budget on the national strategic stock over the past decade on contracts with Emergent. for their anthrax vaccines.

The state of national storage was concentrated last year when the Trump administration struggled to acquire protective equipment in the early stages of the pandemic.

Emergent is collaborating with Johnson & Johnson to produce the coronavirus vaccine.

Psaki said Monday that the Biden administration is conducting an audit of the national storage, but that it is unaware of any concerns that examination of the emerging will affect the timing or pace of vaccine production.