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Pfizer and Moderna expect to double vaccine shipments by spring
Moderna and Pfizer plan to significantly boost vaccine shipments to the U.S. government by this spring, according to written testimony from company executives released Tuesday ahead of a House committee hearing on vaccines.
Where it stands: Pfizer expects to increase its weekly vaccine delivery from 4-5 million doses at the start of February to more than 13 million doses by mid-March, said John Young, Pfizer's chief business officer.
- Moderna is working to deliver more than 40 million doses per month, doubling its current shipment, and aims to ship another 100 million doses by the end of May, said Moderna president Stephen Hoge.
Of note: Both companies are studying potential booster shots in response to emerging coronavirus variants. Their vaccines have shown to be effective against the highly transmissible strains first seen in the U.K. and South Africa.
Pfizer is also studying booster effects in trial participants who have been fully vaccinated, Young said.
- Moderna hopes to provide vaccinations to adolescents by the fall and is currently testing its vaccine's safety for children ages 12 to 18.
Be smart: The more Americans that are fully vaccinated, the faster that herd immunity will be reached — making it more difficult for the virus to spread.
What's next: Executives from the companies are slated to testify before the Energy and Commerce Committee Tuesday morning.
Go deeper on vaccines with our video short course.
Senate Republicans grow weary with White House over stimulus bill
Frustration among many Senate Republicans, not to mention Democrats, toward the White House has hit a fever pitch, with many lawmakers — including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — admitting they could break for the August recess without a stimulus bill.
The latest: The Senate left for the weekend Thursday evening without even circulating a draft bill that McConnell says will be used as a starting point for negotiations — and many blame the White House.
Behind the scenes: Multiple GOP Hill aides involved in the stimulus negotiations tell me they feel Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows have undermined the legislative process.
- "They came in at the back end with a ton of unrealistic requests, like zeroing out funding for testing and forcing the FBI building into the package," one congressional aide said. (The president initially wanted a line in the bill to build a new FBI headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C. )
There was also early skepticism among GOP lawmakers about their role in the talks, according to conversations with seven Republican Hill staffers involved in the crafting of the bill.
- Mnuchin, the White House's key negotiator during the passage of the CARES Act, was criticized by members for his willingness to cut deals with Democrats and "give away the store," as one lawmaker put it.
- He's also been given vast powers under the CARES Act on how the implementation is done. "He can make a lot of decisions unilaterally, and that has added to the skepticism on the Hill," a GOP staffer said.
Meadows has taken a bigger role in stimulus talks this time around and is viewed as Mnuchin's foil, two administration officials told Axios. But it's taken him a while to get the president on the same page as GOP senators.
The other side: "Meadows and Mnuchin have been working closely with Senate GOP leadership. They spent the afternoon on the Hill yesterday working on priorities the White House and Senate R’s can unite around. They’ll be back on the Hill today. They’re also in constant contact with McConnell and [House GOP Leader Kevin] McCarthy," a White House official told Axios.
The bottom line: Republican leaders privately admit that if negotiations are a failure, the White House and Republicans will take the political hit since they're running the show.
Trump lawyers to avoid Michigan lawmaker meeting after COVID exposure
Rudy Giuliani and other key members of President Trump's outside legal team won't be attending today's meeting with two Michigan lawmakers because they've been exposed to the coronavirus, two sources familiar with the internal discussions tell Axios.
Why it matters: This added turmoil inside the president's legal operation comes at a time when the president is urging Republican state lawmakers to interfere with the electoral process and reverse Joe Biden's victory to a Trump win.
- "It's just a shitshow, it's a joke," said a Trump campaign adviser.
Behind the scenes: Top Trump campaign officials held a conference call this morning with Eric Herschmann, a lawyer on the White House staff, in which they candidly discussed their legal conundrum.
- Herschmann serves in an advisory role outside the counsel's office, and no one in the counsel's office participated on the call, according to another person familiar with the call.
- Officials on the call included campaign manager Bill Stepien and advisers Jason Miller, Justin Clark, Matt Morgan, Tim Murtaugh and Boris Epshteyn, as well as Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis.
- Asked whether the White House counsel's office would be present in the meeting, Herschmann told the Trump campaign officials that the counsel's office would not be represented but that somebody needed to brief the president about the legal situation.
This raised the obvious question of which member of Rudy Giuliani's legal team would join the White House meeting.
- But those contingencies fell apart on the call. One of the participants told the group that Andrew Giuliani, a White House staffer and son of Rudy, has tested positive for the virus.
- One of the participants on the call said Rudy Giuliani should not attend the White House meeting because he'd surely been exposed to his son. Then Ellis, a Giuliani sidekick, said if that was the case then the entire Giuliani-affiliated legal team was probably exposed, the sources said.
Trump's campaign lawyers have been holed up for days in a conference room at Trump campaign headquarters in Arlingon, Va., one of the sources said, Andrew Giuliani had been around all of them.
- Andrew Giuliani acknowledged today on Twitter that he has tested positive, writing, "This morning, I tested positive for COVID-19. I am experiencing mild symptoms, and am following all appropriate protocols, including being in quarantine and conducting contact tracing."
- The Trump campaign declined to comment.
What's next: A source familiar with the situation told Axios that another campaign attorney is planning to attend the White House meeting in place of the COVID-infected members of the Giuliani legal team.



