Thread by @timmy315

Hi Twitter, I’m Tim Manning, the White House COVID-19 Supply Coordinator. There’s been a lot of confusion around the use of the Defense Production Act as it relates to the global supply chain for COVID-19 treatment. Let me try and break this down simply as possible: 1/8

To set the stage, the world has embarked on an unprecedented and historic vaccine production effort. In an average year, the world producers around 4 billion vaccines for things like flu and the measles 2/8

This year the world is working to make near 14 billion COVID19 vaccines in addition to those other 4 billion. This is hard work and it’s encouraging to see the progress the world is making. But making vaccine requires specialized materials, and there’s just not enough of them 3/8

To make vaccine here in the US we have used the DPA to ensure we have access to all needed supplies with many US companies. DPA in these cases just means U.S. companies must prioritize their government contracts ahead of other orders, it doesn’t mean an export ban 4/8

DPA doesn’t even mean a “de facto” ban. Companies are able to export. In fact, companies that supply our vaccine manufacturing export their product all across the world. We are just one “client” of the raw material companies. 5/8

It also doesn’t create the shortages – there is just more global manufacturing happening everywhere than the suppliers can support. 6/8

Now here’s what we did yesterday: we diverted our pending orders of vaccine filters to India’s vaccine manufacturing effort. This will help India make more vaccine. And it’s only one effort among many to help the their COVID19 response (e.g. therapeutics, PPE, and oxygen). 7/8

A big part of my job is understanding the complexities of our global supply chain. I monitor this every day. There are challenges of course, but our response will always work to find ways to address them. We’ll continue to stand ready to help with the COVID-19 response. 8/8