President Joe Biden put U.S. leadership center stage and pledged to end the COVID-19 pandemic by 2022, sparking hope that a global and coordinated effort was taking shape nearly two years into the crisis — even as skepticism abounded about translating his promises into reality.
Speaking Wednesday during a virtual COVID-19 summit he convened as the United Nations General Assembly took place in New York, Biden urged world leaders, civil society groups, business leaders, and pharmaceutical companies to “go big” in working together to fight the pandemic. He promised to boost the United States’ COVID-19 vaccine donations by another 500 million doses by mid-2022, bringing Washington’s pledge to more than 1 billion, and called on other wealthy nations to increase their own commitments.
Biden’s pledge to boost manufacturing fits into his broader plan for strengthening global health security, including by creating financing mechanisms to support lower-income countries.
However, Amanda Glassman, executive vice president at the Center for Global Development and chief executive officer for CGD Europe, said she was concerned that the money being promised for health security projects falls short of what is needed. “It’s not very ambitious, and that’s a little concerning,” she said.