US President-elect Joe Biden received a COVID-19 vaccine live on television Monday in a campaign to boost Americans’ confidence in the coups, and in stark contrast to President Donald Trump’s mixed messages.
The incoming 78-year-old president received the Pfizer vaccine at Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware. His wife Jill received the injection earlier, the presidential transition team said.
Biden told Americans that “there is nothing to worry about” when getting vaccinated and that in the meantime, they should continue to wear masks and “listen to the experts.”
He and the future first lady were the last high-profile political figures to publicly join the first wave of vaccines aimed at stopping a pandemic that has killed nearly 318,000 Americans.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her husband will be vaccinated next week.
Meanwhile, Acting Vice President Mike Pence and his wife got vaccinated last week. Trump, however, has yet to participate in the campaign.
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The Republican leader, who has burned out pushing conspiracy theories that his electoral loss to Biden was the result of massive fraud, cites the natural immunity he is believed to enjoy after recovering from a coronavirus outbreak.
Surgeon General Jerome Adams reinforced that argument over the weekend that, by saying that because of the antibodies the President received from his infection, “that’s actually a scenario where we tell people that maybe they should postpone the vaccine”.
However, it has done little, even in terms of issuing statements, to support the campaign to overcome American skepticism about vaccines.
His wife, Melania Trump, who also contracted COVID-19, has also been largely absent from the issue.
The inconsistent message is part of a pattern with Trump, who throughout the pandemic has gone from declaring himself a wartime leader to poking fun at scientists and insisting that the disease will disappear without major changes in daily life. of Americans.
The oldest to assume the presidency
Biden will be the oldest president to take office on January 20.
This was the first injection of the two-stage Pfizer vaccine and he said he was “waiting” for follow-up.
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Mr. Biden praised “the scientists and the people who put this together: front-line workers, people who really did the clinical work.”
He called the medical workers “amazing and incredible.”
Biden also had some rare praise for the Trump administration, which he said “deserves some credit” for overseeing vaccine development and production at record speed.
Distribution of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines began a week ago and a second vaccine came into use on Monday, this time manufactured by Moderna.
But Biden, who spoke through a double mask, cautioned that there is still a long way to go before vaccines can actually stop the spread of the virus.
“It’s worth saying that, you know, this is just the beginning,” he said. “It’s going to take time.”
“In the meantime,” he said, “I hope people will listen to all the experts … talk about the need to wear masks” during the holidays.
“If you don’t have to travel, don’t travel. It’s really important.”
Large numbers of Americans subscribe to the anti-vaccination movement and hostility to COVID-19 vaccines in particular has been sparked by right-wing media personalities and conspiracy theorists.
There are also areas of the country where the use of masks has little adherence and, in some cases, is actively opposed.
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