Biden visits Pfizer vaccine manufacturing plant in Michigan

President Biden made a rare trip out of the DC area to visit a plant making COVID-19 vaccines and tout efforts to boost supply.

Biden visited a factory in Kalamazoo, where he met with lab workers and learned about the process behind creating one of the two COVID-19 vaccines that is being widely used across the country to inoculate Americans. It marked just the second time Biden had traveled outside the Washington, D.C., area since taking office.

“I came here because I want the American people to understand the extraordinary, extraordinary work that’s being done to undertake the most difficult operational challenges this nation has ever faced,” Biden said in prepared remarks.

The numbers: Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said that the company is currently delivering 5 million vaccine doses per week to the U.S., but is working to expand that capacity and expects to “more than double” it in the next “couple of weeks.”

The company is on track to deliver 120 million doses by the end of March, and 200 million doses by the end of May, Bourla said, two months faster than the original timeline.