A medical worker has a Modern COVID-19 vaccine vial on the first day that Orange County residents age 65 and older can be vaccinated at a location at the Orange County Convention Center on December 29, 2020 in Orlando, Florida.
Paul Hennessy | NurPhoto | Getty Images
Modern Covid-19 vaccine production increases this year, increasing the minimum number of doses it expects to make by 20% to 600 million, the company announced Monday.
The company said it is working to produce up to 1 billion doses of the Covid-19 vaccine this year. The United States is on track to insure 100 million doses of the Modern vaccine by the end of March and an additional 100 million by June, the Massachusetts-based company said in a statement.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted in December the emergency clearance for Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine for people over the age of 18 in the United States and has begun the initial release of the drug.
The federal government has agreed to buy 200 million doses of the Modern vaccine with the option to insure an additional 300 million doses, the company said.
Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine, which uses a new mRNA technology and requires two separate doses for four weeks, has also been authorized for use in Canada for people over 18 years of age. The company has agreed to supply Canada with 40 million doses of its vaccine with the option to provide an additional 16 million.
“Our effectiveness in providing an early supply to U.S. and Canadian governments and our ability to increase basal production estimates for 2021 are signs that our increase in mRNA vaccine production is a success, “said Moderna’s chief technical officer, Juan Andres.
The U.S. government under Operation Trump Warp Speed said it would distribute just under 6 million doses of Modern vaccine after the FDA authorized emergency use.
The deployment of vaccines in the nation has been slower than officials had initially anticipated. So far, the United States has distributed just over 13 million doses of vaccine, but has only administered 4.2 million “arms shots,” according to data last updated Saturday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Units. Officials intended to vaccinate 20 million people with two-dose Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna by the end of December.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar defended the distribution of vaccines from the ABC’s “Good Morning America” operation on Monday. He said there has been a lag between when doses are first made available, sorted by states and then delivered, which has been slowed by the holidays.
However, the United States has seen a “rapid uptake” of the vaccine in recent days, Azar said.
“What we were saying was that our goal was actually to have 20 millions of first doses available in December. They are available, “Azar said. It is unclear what Azar meant when he said the doses were” available, “as only 13 million were distributed in America since Saturday morning.