The White House outlines a plan for how the U.S. would distribute an initial 25 million doses around the world.

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U.S. to Distribute an Initial 25 Million Vaccine Doses Worldwide

The White House announced on Thursday that it would distribute the coronavirus vaccines as part of the 80 million doses President Biden pledged to send overseas by the end of June.

“Today, we’re outlining our framework for sharing with the world the first 25 million doses. To be clear, our approach is to ensure vaccines are delivered in a way that is equitable. It follows the latest science and public health data. Across the coming weeks, the administration will move as expeditiously as possible, and work through regulatory requirements, logistical details to ensure safe and secure delivery of doses.” “First, our goal in sharing our vaccines is in service of ending the pandemic globally. Our overarching aim is to get as many safe and effective vaccines to as many people as fast as possible. It’s as simple as that. We want to save lives and thwart variants that place all of us at risk. But perhaps most important, this is just the right thing to do. Thanks to the ingenuity of American scientists and the resilience and commitment of the American people, we’re in a position to help others, so we will help others.”

By Sheryl Gay Stolberg

The White House, besieged with requests from other nations to share excess doses of coronavirus vaccine, on Thursday announced it will distribute an initial 25 million doses this month across a “wide range of countries” within Latin America and the Caribbean, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa, as well as the war-ravaged Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank.

The 25 million represent an initial tranche of a total of 80 million doses President Biden has pledged to send overseas by the end of this month. Three quarters of the first batch will be given to the international vaccine effort known as Covax, officials said a White House news conference on the pandemic. The rest will be reserved for “immediate needs and to help with surges around the world,” said Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, including in India and Iraq as well as the West Bank and Gaza.

Thursday’s announcement comes a week before Mr. Biden leaves for Cornwall, England, to meet with the heads of state of the Group of Seven Nations, where the global vaccine supply is certain to be a topic of discussion. Officials said the administration would continue to donate additional doses throughout the summer as they become available.

“This is just the beginning,” said Jeffrey Zients, Mr. Biden’s coronavirus response coordinator. “Expect a regular cadence of shipments around the world, across the next several weeks.”

While China and Russia have used vaccine donations as an instrument of diplomacy in an effort to extract favors from other nations, Mr. Biden has insisted the United States will not do that — a point that Mr. Sullivan emphasized on Thursday.

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