President-elect Joe Biden and incoming first lady Jill Biden will get their first coronavirus vaccine dose on Monday
- President-elect Joe Biden and incoming first lady Jill Biden will get their first dose of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine on Monday, according to incoming White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
- Psaki also revealed that Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her husband, incoming second gentleman Doug Emhoff, will receive their vaccinations the week after the Bidens.
- The Pfizer vaccine requires two doses given to patients several weeks apart and has been found to be 94.5% effective.
- On December 18, Vice President Mike Pence, second lady Karen Pence, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams received the vaccine on-camera.
President-elect Joe Biden and incoming first lady Jill Biden will get their first dose of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine in Delaware on Monday, incoming White House press secretary Jen Psaki said during a Friday call with reporters.
The Biden transition team did not specify the exact location for the vaccination during the announcement.
Psaki also revealed that Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her husband, incoming second gentleman Doug Emhoff, will receive their vaccinations the week after the Bidens.
The Pfizer vaccine requires two doses given to patients several weeks apart and has been found to be 94.5% effective in trials.
Psaki also revealed that Biden and Harris were taking the vaccines at different times at the recommendation of health experts, who wanted to prevent any possible side effects from occurring on the same day between the two officials.
In September, Biden said he was dismayed that some Americans wouldn't get the vaccination because of COVID-19 misinformation spread by President Donald Trump; as president-elect, he has projected a steadiness about the vaccinations, telling CNN's Jake Tapper during an interview earlier in December that he "would be happy to" receive the vaccine while being televised to encourage trust in the medical treatment.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said earlier this week on ABC's "Good Morning America" that Biden and Harris should be vaccinated as soon as possible.
"You want him fully protected as he enters into the presidency in January, so that would be my strong recommendation," he said during the interview.
Fauci also recommended that Trump and Vice President Mike Pence receive the vaccination.
On December 18, Pence, second lady Karen Pence, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on-camera in Washington, DC, as the Trump administration rolls out a $250 million public campaign to boost confidence among Americans to take the coronavirus vaccine.
Trump has not yet taken the vaccine but said earlier this week that he would do so "at the appropriate time" without providing further details.
On December 14, New York City critical care nurse Sandra Lindsay became the first person in the US to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine outside of trials. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use last week, with doses arriving throughout the US this past week.
On December 18, Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine was authorized for emergency use, which will make millions more doses available in the US, although it will take months to vaccinate a large swath of the population.
As of Saturday morning, more than 313,000 Americans have died of the coronavirus and nearly 17.5 million have been infected with the disease, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.