The federal government secured deals for another 200 million doses of coronavirus vaccine, President Biden announced Thursday during a tour of the National Institutes of Health.
Why it matters: Biden said the U.S. is on track to have enough supply of the vaccine for 300 million Americans by the end of July. That comes out to roughly 600 million doses, boosting "supply in the United States by 50 percent," as first reported by the Washington Post.
Context: The Biden administration said last month that it planned to buy an addition 100 million doses each of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.
What they're saying: "We need more people to get vaccinated to beat this pandemic," Biden said Thursday.
- "We've now purchased enough vaccine supply to vaccinate all Americans, and now we're working to get those vaccines into the arms of people."
Of note: It's unlikely the purchase will make the vaccine widely available sooner than originally planned, but it may prevent shortages later this year, per the Post.