After previously announcing that the country will have enough vaccines for every American by the end of July, President Joe Biden said Tuesday that new developments in production have sped up that process, CNN reports.
Biden now promises that the country will have enough vaccines for every adult citizen by the end of May.
His announcement comes as a third vaccine by Johnson & Johnson has now become available for emergency use. The third vaccine arrives alongside a partnership between Johnson & Johnson and Merck & Co, a pharmaceutical giant which will amp up production on the single-shot vaccine.
“Two of the largest health care and pharmaceutical companies in the world that are usually competitors are working together on the vaccine,” Biden said during a Tuesday address.
Biden’s new timeline does not mean that all vaccines will be administered by the end of May. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration already authorized the two preexisting COVID vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna for emergency use, but those are two-shot vaccines, while the newly announced vaccine only requires one shot.
The FDA also granted emergency use authorization for the new vaccine on Saturday. It’s already being distributed and first shots are expected Tuesday.
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