Agencies purchase 200M more vaccine doses

The departments of Health and Human Services and Defense yesterday ordered 200 million more doses of COVID-19 vaccines authorized for emergency use, half from Pfizer for $2 billion and the rest from Moderna for about $1.7 billion.

The new orders bring the federal government’s total vaccine purchase from the two companies to 600 million doses, enough to vaccinate 300 million Americans, the agencies said. The companies are leveraging U.S.-based manufacturing capacity to deliver the doses in regular 300,000 increments through July.

President Biden announced the planned purchase last month.