Tony's Diary Package — page 704

To this end, the United States is working around the clock to deploy available resources and supplies. The United States has identified sources of specific raw material urgently required for Indian manufacture of the Covishield vaccine that will immediately be made available for India. To help treat COVID-19 patients and protect front-line health workers in India, the United States has identified supplies of therapeutics, rapid diagnostic test kits, ventilators, and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that will immediately be made available for India. The United States also is pursuing options to provide oxygen generation and related supplies on an urgent basis. The U.S. Development Finance Corporation (DFC) is funding a substantial expansion of manufacturing capability for BioE, the vaccine manufacturer in India, enabling BioE to ramp up to produce at least 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of 2022. Additionally, the United States is deploying an expert team of public health advisors from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and USAID to work in close collaboration with the U.S. Embassy, India's health ministries, and India's Epidemic Intelligence Service staff. USAID will also quickly work with CDC to support and fast-track the mobilization of emergency resources available to India through the Global Fund. I had an important zoom meeting today with Larry Corey an Emilio Emini about the same subject as above , namely, how the United states can play a major proactive role in getting mRNA vaccines to the developing world. In our discussion, it became clear that there are immediate needs as mentioned above; however, there is also the immediate need of getting vaccine doses to lower and middle income countries. The United states could exert leadership in pressuring Moderna and Pfizer to scale up their vaccine production and sell it two developing nations at cost for production which is approximately $6 per dose as compared to the $30 produced that we are currently paying here in the developed world. Apparently there are liability issues that the pharmaceutical companies are concerned with. These revolve around the fact that although the United States government can indemnify the companies against lawsuits here in the United states the companies feel that they are liable to being sued for adverse outcomes by people in the countries to whom they're providing vaccine. Some mechanism needs to be worked out to address this concern. I have asked Emilio and Larry to put a one pager together summarizing our discussion so that I can bring it to Jeff who could bring it to Ron Klain who could bring it to the president. More later. Breakthrough infections are very rare: