U.S. President-elect Joe Biden got the first injection of coronavirus vaccine on Monday at a televised ceremony in his home state of Delaware.
A 78-year-old former vice-president was administered Pfizer BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, which needs a second week apart to gain 98 per cent effectiveness. Biden’s vaccination mirrored that of his wife Jill Biden earlier the same day, the Xinhua news agency reported.
“What I want to say is that we owe a lot to these guys,” said Biden, sporting a black mask, after he was fired at the ChristianaCare Hospital in Newark, Delaware. “The scientists and the staff who put this together, the field employees, the people who actually did the clinical study, it’s all incredible. I wish we had time to drive you around the whole hospital to see how busy and awesome you are. And we owe you a lot. We still are.”
I’m looking forward to the second shot. So is Jill,” Biden said.
Jen Psaki, spokeswoman for the Biden transition team, told reporters Friday that Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, would receive their vaccinations next week. Vice President Mike Pence and Second Lady Karen Pence, along with Surgeon General Jerome Adams, were given the vaccine on camera on Friday.
The first dose of Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, the product of the US-German partnership, started to be distributed to healthcare staff around the US last week after securing an emergency usage authorisation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and being shipped to the US.