Hi, I'm Dan Premack, and welcome to Axios Recap. Today is Monday, April 12th. Uber rides are up to record levels. The chances of Chicago high school's reopening are down, and we're focused on what America will do with its extra vaccine doses.

Most American adults haven't yet received a COVID-19 vaccination, yours truly included,

but expectations are that we won't have to wait too much longer, particularly since every

adult in the country will be considered eligible beginning next Monday. And with vaccine

production continuing to quickly ramp up, the U.S. soon may have

something that was unthinkable at this time last year. A surplus. More doses of vaccine than we actually

require, even if booster shots get recommended next year. In theory, that should be great news not only

for us, but for the rest of the world, particularly developing nations that are desperate to vaccinate their populations.

Again, in theory, the reality, though, as was just uncovered by Vanity Fair contributing editor Catherine Eban, is that the Operation Warp Speed contracts signed by the Trump administration explicitly prevent the U.S. government

from shipping surplus vaccine overseas. It's something the Biden team learned upon arriving

at the White House and was ready to quickly reverse, but so far has let the status quo survive.

In the meantime, lots of people in lots of other countries are viewing vaccinations like we did in 2020, likely, but not anytime soon.

So today we wanted to speak with Catherine Eban about those contracts, why Biden hasn't renegotiated them, and what happens next.

We're joined now by Catherine Eban, a Vanity Fair contributing editor who just wrote a piece titled, We Are Horting, why the U.S. still can't donate

COVID-19 vaccines to countries in need.

So, Catherine, you get these Operation Warp Speed contracts, and your biggest takeaway is what?

The biggest single takeaway is that the contracts very explicitly restrict the vaccines to the U.S. or U.S. territories.

What that means is that when we do have a surplus, which is possibly around the corner,

we're not going to be able to share them unless those

contracts are renegotiated. So it has a chilling effect on President Biden's ability to do

what he has said he wants to do, which is to be a global public health leader and really,

you know, turn his attention to the rest of the world.

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