The US government is purchasing an additional 200 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine and will have enough to vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of the summer, a senior administration official said Tuesday.
An additional 100 million doses of vaccine are being bought from Pfizer and an additional 100 million doses from Moderna, the two companies whose vaccines have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, the official said.
"With these additional doses, the US will have enough vaccine to fully vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of this summer," virtually the entire US population, the official told reporters.
President Joe Biden has pledged to provide 100 million Covid shots in his first 100 days in office, and the official said the administration was increasing its overall weekly vaccine supply to states and territories.
It was increasing the supply from 8.6 million doses a week to a minimum of 10 million doses.
"We are very eager to get everyone vaccinated as quickly as possible," the official said.
"We wish we could say today that every American who wants to be vaccinated could go get vaccinated," the official said. "But it's going to take a number of months to where we can actually say to Americans that's it's open season."