President Donald Trump is expected to sign an order today that Americans get COVID-19 vaccines before they are shipped to other countries.

A senior White House official says it reaffirms the president's mantra - "America First.”

President Trump is expected to sign an executive order that prioritizes the shipment of the COVID-19 vaccine to Americans ahead of other nations, says senior administration officials who spoke to CNN.

This comes as health experts say a post-Thanksgiving surge is starting to blanket the country.

"We're going to see increases of hospitalizations and hospitals are already on the brink, so where is the reserve capacity? Where are patients going to go at this point?" says Dr. Leana Wen, CNN Medical Analyst. According to the New York Times, after initially purchasing 100million doses of the vaccines, the Trump administration turned down an offer from drug maker Pfizer to buy more doses of the vaccine in the late summer.

"The good news is that there are more in the pipeline and we also have other means in place whereby the U.S. can potentially procure additional doses including from international cooperatives that exist for this very reason," says Loyce Pace, Biden COVID-19 Task Force member. Administration officials deny the story, which reported the decision to not buy additional doses from Pfizer might mean the U.S. won’t be able to get more from them until June because of the company’s commitments to other countries.

"We've always known that in the initial couple months the supply would be quite limited and so we are really going to have to figure out how best to prioritize the limited number of doses for the maximum impact," says Dr. Celine Gounder, Biden COVID-19 task force.

The Trump administration says it's working with numerous vaccine companies and has the ability to buy three billion doses.