WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that Americans would be the first to receive COVID-19 vaccines, but any surplus would be shared with the world.
“We’re going to start off and ensure Americans are taken care of first, but we’re then going to try to help the rest of the world,” Biden told reporters after a joint announcement with the chief executives of Johnson & Johnson and Merck about their joint effort to produce more vaccines.
“If we have a surplus, we’re going to share it with the rest of the world,” Biden said, adding that the United States had already committed to providing $4 billion to the COVAX global initiative to distribute vaccines in developing countries.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Leslie Adler)
