U.S. Vaccines Ship to South Korea as Donations Start to Flow

(Bloomberg) -- A shipment of U.S. coronavirus vaccines has been sent to South Korea, after President Joe Biden’s administration announced it would donate an initial tranche of 25 million doses to dozens of countries.

One million Johnson & Johnson doses were shipped from the U.S. late Thursday and are poised to arrive in South Korea early Saturday morning. “The friendship between our two countries runs deep, especially in times of great need,” State Department spokesman Ned Price tweeted Friday.

It’s the first of the shipments the U.S. announced Thursday, including roughly 6 million that it steered directly to countries, including South Korea. The rest are being sent to U.S.-designated countries through Covax, a World Health Organization-backed effort to provide doses to low and middle-income nations.

The J&J shipment marks the first time the U.S. has shared doses that it otherwise could have used at home. Biden has pledged to share 80 million doses this month, though that relies in part on AstraZeneca Plc shots, which aren’t authorized for U.S. use and remain unavailable due to a safety review.

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