Washington DC: President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that prioritises Americans' access to COVID-19 vaccines before the US potentially begins helping other nations.
If necessary, Trump said, he is ready to invoke the Defence Production Act to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines first get to the Americans. The Defence Production Act allows a president to force private manufacturers to ramp up production and give the federal government priority on any orders it places.
American companies, he said, were the first to produce a verifiably safe and effective vaccine.
Together, we will defeat the virus, and we will soon end the pandemic, and we will save millions and millions of lives, both in our country and all over the world. And we've already started," Trump said during signing the executive order on Tuesday at a White House event celebrating 'Operation Warp Speed', his administration's effort to produce and distribute safe and effective vaccines for COVID-19.
Trump told reporters that his administration provided a total of USD 14 billion to accelerate Coronavirus vaccine development and to manufacture all of the top candidates long in advance.
As a result of this "unprecedented investment", both Pfizer and Moderna have announced that their vaccines are approximately 95 per cent effective, he said.
Pfizer has developed its vaccine outside of 'Operation Warp Speed', but is collaborating with the US government on manufacturing and distribution.
The UK on Tuesday began its vaccinations with the first set of people injected with their first of two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech jab.
The deadly virus has so far killed more than 285,000 Americans and some 1.5 million people worldwide.
As per the executive order, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is directed to provide priority access to COVID-19 vaccines to Americans.
"Through this action, Trump is putting the health and safety of Americans, the viability of our economy and the security of our nation first," the White House said.
The US has led and will continue to lead the world's public health and humanitarian response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it said.
The Trump administration is prepared to ship COVID-19 vaccine doses to every corner of America within 48 hours of the issuance of an Emergency Use Authorisation by the US Food and Drug Administration, the White House said.
Trump said more companies are in the pipeline of the vaccine announcement soon.
We have some companies like Johnson & Johnson and others. They are all coming in, and they're coming in very quickly. We expect to have some news on that very shortly. We have worked very well with the companies, but if for any reason we have any problems, we will be instituting the Defence Production Act, and we will make sure that we don't have any problems for very long, he said.