Biden’s COVID team split over decision to send vaccine doses abroad

The ongoing divide raises questions about the administration’s confidence in the nation’s vaccine pipeline, which for now is largely reliant on just two manufacturers: Pfizer and Moderna. It also underscores the extent to which members of Biden’s pandemic response team disagree about how to protect Americans from highly transmissible virus variants while also helping countries in dire need. “The question is, what if there is a manufacturing problem or a contamination or a barrier, and then all of a sudden we don't have enough vaccines,” said one senior administration official. “There’s people … pushing to do it and do it now. Then there are people who are saying ... we'll deal with it, but not right now, let's just wait a little bit.”... With production at Emergent still up in the air, and the FDA still reviewing all previously manufactured doses of both J&J and AstraZeneca, some senior Biden officials say they are unsure about U.S. supply calculations for late summer and early fall. Others inside the administration have countered that there is little cause for concern. An individual familiar with the Biden team’s supply projections said the U.S. has known for weeks that it would have enough vaccine doses for all U.S. adults by the end of May, even without J&J. The U.S. will receive 450 million doses by the end of May and will have another 100 million additional doses manufactured and waiting for testing, the person said.