Who benefits? US debates fairest way to share spare vaccine

WASHINGTON (AP) — In April, the Biden administration announced plans to share millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses with the world by the end of June. Five weeks later, nations around the globe are still waiting — with growing impatience — to learn where the vaccines will go and how they will be distributed.

To President Joe Biden, the doses represent a modern-day “arsenal of democracy,” serving as the ultimate carrot for America’s partners abroad, but also as a necessary tool for global health, capable of saving millions of lives and returning a semblance of normalcy to friends and foes alike.

The central question for Biden: What share of doses should be provided to those who need it most, and how many should be reserved for U.S. partners?

The answer, so far at least, appears to be that the administration will take a hands-off approach to distributing the bulk of the doses by providing them to COVAX, the U.N.-backed global vaccine sharing program. While the percentage is not yet finalized, it would mark a substantial — and immediate — boost to the lagging COVAX effort, which to date has shared just 76 million doses with needy countries.

The Biden administration plans to reserve about a fourth of the doses for the U.S. to dispense directly to individual nations of its choice.

The growing U.S. stockpile of COVID-19 vaccines is seen not only as a testament to American ingenuity, but also its global privilege.

More than 50% of Americans have received at least one dose of the vaccine, and more than 135 million are fully vaccinated, helping bring the rate of cases and deaths in the U.S. to the lowest level since the earliest days of the pandemic.

Scores of countries have requested doses from the United States, but to date only Mexico and Canada have received a combined 4.5...