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United States President-elect Joe Biden received his first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine on live television as part of a growing effort to convince the American public that vaccines are safe.
The president-elect took a dose of the Pfizer vaccine at a hospital on Monday (local time) not far from his home in Delaware, hours after his wife, Jill Biden, did the same. The injections arrived the same day that a second vaccine, produced by Moderna, will begin arriving in the states. It joins Pfizer’s in the nation’s arsenal against the Covid-19 pandemic, which has now killed more than 317,000 people in the United States and changed lives around the world.
Carolyn Kaster / AP
US President-elect Joe Biden receives his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine at ChristianaCare Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware on December 21, 2020, from Nurse Practitioner Tabe Mase.
“I’m ready,” said Biden, who was dosed at a hospital in Newark, Delaware, and declined the option of counting to three before the needle was inserted into his left arm. “I’m doing this to show that people need to be prepared when they are available to receive the vaccine. There is nothing to worry about.”
The president-elect praised healthcare workers, saying that President Donald Trump’s administration “deserves some credit to get this off the ground.” Biden also urged Americans to wear masks during the upcoming Christmas holidays and not travel unless necessary.
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Other top government officials last week joined the first wave of Americans getting vaccinated against Covid-19 as part of the largest vaccination campaign in the country’s history.
Vice President Mike Pence, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and other lawmakers received doses Friday. They chose to publicize their injections as part of a campaign to convince Americans that the vaccines are safe and effective amid skepticism, especially among Republicans.
Andrew Harnik / AP
Vice President Mike Pence receives a Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in the White House complex, December 18, 2020, in Washington.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her husband are expected to receive their first injections next week.
But absent from the action has been President Donald Trump, who has spent the past week largely out of sight as he continues to be locked in electoral defeat and comes up with increasingly outlandish plans to try to stay in power. It’s an approach that has puzzled some of the top aides who see their silence as a missed opportunity for the president, who leaves office on January 20, to claim credit for helping to oversee the rapid development of the vaccine and polish his legacy.
Trump, who has spread misinformation about vaccine risks in the past, has not said when he intends to get vaccinated. He tweeted earlier this month that he was “not scheduled” to take it, but said he hoped to “do it at the appropriate time.”
The White House has said it is still discussing timing with its doctors.
Trump was hospitalized with Covid-19 in October and received an experimental monoclonal antibody treatment to which he attributed his rapid recovery. An advisory board for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that people who received such treatment must wait at least 90 days to get vaccinated to avoid any potential interference.
“When the time is right, I am sure he will continue to accept it,” echoed White House spokesman Brian Morgenstern on Friday. “This is something we are working on.”
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, however, offered a different explanation for the delay. He told reporters last week that Trump was delaying, in part, “to show Americans that our priority is the most vulnerable.”
“The president wants to send a parallel message, which is, you know, the residents of our long-term care facilities and our front-line workers are of the utmost importance, and he wants to set an example in that regard,” he said.
Jacquelyn Martin / AP
As White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany puts it, Trump was putting off vaccination to show that he is prioritizing America’s most vulnerable.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has said that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which was the first to be licensed, “is safe and likely effective” for people who have been infected with Covid-19 and “should be offered independently. of the history of symptomatic or asymptomatic infection by SARS-CoV-2 ”.
While there is no recommended minimum waiting time between infection and vaccination, because reinfection is rare in the three months after infection, the committee said people who tested positive in the previous 90 days “may delay vaccination until near the end of this period, if desired. “
The panel also recommends that those who received Trump’s treatment postpone vaccination for at least 90 days.
“Currently, there is no data on the safety and efficacy of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccination in people who received monoclonal antibodies or convalescent plasma as part of Covid-19 treatment,” they wrote, recommending that vaccination “be postponed at least 90 days, as a precautionary measure until additional information is available, to avoid interference of antibody treatment with vaccine-induced immune responses ”.
Surgeon General Jerome Adams cited that recommendation on CBS. Face the nation on Sunday when asked if Trump planned to receive the shot on camera.
“From a scientific point of view, I will remind people that the president has had Covid in the last 90 days. He received the monoclonal antibodies. And that’s actually a scenario where we tell people that maybe they should postpone vaccination, talk to your healthcare provider to find out the right time, ”Adams said.
But others, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, have recommended that Trump get vaccinated without delay.
“Even though the president himself was infected, and probably has antibodies that would probably be protective, we are not sure how long that protection will last. So to be doubly sure, I would recommend that you get vaccinated, ”he said. ABC News.
Associated Press journalist Jonathan Lemire in New York contributed to this report.
