Amazon has extended assistance to President Joe Biden to distribute coronavirus vaccines but did not make the same offer to President Donald Trump, according to officials of the previous administration.
Hours after Trump’s presidency drew to a close, Amazon offered Biden assistance in distributing coronavirus vaccines, with Dave Clark, CEO of Amazon’s consumer business, writing, “We are prepared to leverage our operations, IT, & communications capabilities and expertise to assist your administration’s vaccination efforts.”
“As you begin your work leading the country out of the COVID-19 crisis, Amazon stands ready to assist you in reaching your goal of vaccinating 100 million Americans in the first 100 days of your administration,” Clark added.
Additionally, Clark has requested employees at Amazon fulfillment centers and Whole Foods grocery stores “who cannot work from home” receive the vaccine at their earliest convenience.
Fox News reports:
[T]wo senior Trump administration officials told Fox News that Amazon never offered assistance to the Trump administration with vaccine distribution. Amazon did have communication with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other administration officials, Fox News is told, but sources said no letter or formal offer was made. Meanwhile, former Operation Warp Speed officials told Fox News that an Amazon offer would not have necessarily applied because the Trump administration was not doing a federal rollout of vaccines, but rather, leaving the distribution up to the states.
The offer comes as the United States will soon begin the process of greenlighting other vaccines to protect against the coronavirus.
Appearing on NBC News’ Meet the Press, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the nation is “weeks away, not months away” from fully evaluating vaccine candidates from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca as Biden plans to ramp up distribution after criticizing the Trump administration’s vaccine rollout. He went on to say:
I would imagine within a period of a week or so, or at the most, a couple of weeks, they’re going to be getting their data together and showing it to the [Food and Drug Administration]. They’re going to have to get their data and safety monitoring board to look at it to see if it is appropriate to start, you know, essentially putting the package together to get an emergency use authorization. But we’re weeks away, not months away, for sure.
The U.S. has administered 13.7 million shots since inoculations began on Dec. 14 with healthcare workers for an average of 847,387 doses per day, according to Bloomberg.
The UPI contributed to this report.
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