Biden to address the UN General Assembly meeting in New York on Sept 21, says White House

In his first in-person address during the coronavirus pandemic, US President Joe Biden will speak at the 76th Session of the UN General Assembly in the coming week in New York, the White House stated in a release on Monday. The UNGA 76 will open on 14 September and the first day of the high-level General Debate will be on 21 September. After being held virtually in 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic situation, the UN Assembly will this time draw spectators and political persona in an annual convening of world leaders in-person, reports revealed. US Commander in Chief Biden will deliver remarks on Tuesday, Sept. 21, said the White House, adding that more details will be revealed soon. 

At the UNGA, the US leader will lay down the foreign policy priorities and will hold bilateral meetings with leaders and decision-makers of the other allies and partner countries. The White House did not immediately provide Biden’s address or detail of his schedule, Associated Press reported. Meanwhile, a separate Politico report had outlined last week that Biden plans to discuss efforts to improve coordination in order to tackle the COVID-19 worldwide amid the emergence of the variants. He aims to draft plans to boost the supply of coronavirus vaccines to at least 19 developing countries, as well as enhancing their manufacturing capabilities with the help of global support and WHO. 

Rich nations, US lagging in vaccine supply commitments

Approximately 12 months ago, as the COVID-19 pandemic devastated the vulnerable population, nations worldwide supported COVAX, a multilateral initiative aimed at guaranteeing “global access” to life-saving COVID-19 vaccines. Under the COVAX facility, the World Health Organization (WHO) began securing, financing, and entering into negotiations with vaccine developers and manufacturers worldwide to procure doses for the low-income nations. COVAX helped the WHO in addressing technical and operational challenges associated with rolling out the largest and most complex vaccination program in history.

While COVAX already achieved significant progress with the US $10 billion funding, delivering up to 4.5 billion doses of vaccine; an estimated 240 million doses to the developing nations, the WHO said, "unacceptable" deals and delays have hampered lifesaving COVAX deliveries to the poorer nations. WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom asserted that rich countries including the US committed to donating 1 billion vaccine doses to other countries, but less than 15 percent of those doses have "materialised".