Amid the continuing coronavirus crisis in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden had a telephone conversation on Monday with assurances exchanged on smoothening out issues related to supply chains for vaccines. The U.S. would be supporting India’s efforts to come to grips with the massive second wave.

The phone call comes after a few days in which the U.S.-India relationship seemed to come under strain. As countries around the world pledged support and medical aid and supplies to India, the U.S. was seemingly slow to respond and continued to defend its ban on the export of raw materials required to make vaccines such as Covishield. A state department spokesperson had in fact made a statement that the United States’ priority is to first successfully vaccinate the American people. The statement was met with sharp criticism and with mounting political pressure in the U.S. statements on Sunday were swiftly issued by President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, all assuring India of support. There was acknowledgement too, that in the initial days of the pandemic last year, India was quick to send assistance to the U.S. and that would now be reciprocated.

A readout of the call between the two leaders said Mr. Biden conveyed solidarity with India and would support its efforts against COVID-19 by quickly deploying resources such as therapeutics, ventilators and identifying sources of raw materials to be made available for the manufacture of Covishield vaccines. Prime Minister Modi on his part “underscored the need to ensure smooth and open supply chains of raw materials and inputs required for manufacture of vaccines, medicines, and therapeutics related to COVID-19. “

However, though calls have also been growing for the U.S. to also provide spare vaccines to India from its stockpiles, particularly some of the tens of millions of doses of AstraZeneca vaccine, the Biden administration has said that the government of India did not request it for ready-to-use vaccines. In a White House press briefing on Monday, in which a remarkable amount of time was spent on questions and answers about India, press secretary Jen Psaki said that no doses of AstraZeneca were currently available to send to India but approximately 10 million doses could be released if and when the FDA (Federal Drug Administration) clears those. It is still unclear why the government has not requested ready-to-use vaccines but the assurance of support and medical aid from the United States, India’s most important strategic ally, is a reassuring signal. The supplies that the U.S. will now provide could also be crucial in this battle against the deadly second wave of the pandemic and that makes this story our top pick of the day.

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