The Biden administration announced plans to spend billions of dollars to ramp up United States vaccine production. Officials said on Nov. 17 that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will reach out to mRNA vaccine manufacturers to identify opportunities to scale up production with the goal of increasing capacity to a billion doses per year starting in the second half of 2022. Officials say this will help the U.S. distribute vaccines globally to deal with the current outbreak of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus that causes the disease COVID-19 and help prepare for future pandemics. White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients said on Nov. 17 that the plan will help the country produce vaccines within six to nine months of identifying a future pathogen. “[The program] would combine the expertise of the U.S. government in basic scientific research with the robust ability of pharmaceutical companies to …