A federal official announced on Thursday that a COVID-19 vaccine will be free for all Americans.
“We are on track to deliver hundreds of millions of doses by January 2021,” Paul Mango, a senior health department official, told reporters.
The government has invested more than $10 billion in six vaccine projects. If a vaccine is approved after clinical trials, hundreds of millions of doses will be delivered and paid for by the government, according to Mango.
The cost to have these doses administered by doctors and other technicians should be covered by health insurers. Mango said that “most” commercial insurers will waive out-of-pocket fees.
In a Wednesday interview with The Hill, Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said he was “cautiously optimistic” that at least one of the projects the U.S. has invested in would produce an effective vaccine by the end of the year.
According to Mango, the rush to find a coronavirus vaccine, which has infected over 5 million Americans, will not come at the expense of a well-tested drug. “We are not at all reducing the regulatory rigor with which we will evaluate and hopefully approve vaccines,” Mango said. He is deputy chief of staff for policy in the office of the secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services. Continue Reading
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