Vice President Mike Pence became the highest-profile world leader to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, receiving his shot on live television Friday morning.
“I didn’t feel a thing,” he said moments later.
He followed Surgeon General Jerome Adams and second lady Karen Pence in rolling up his sleeve to get a jab from staff from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
“Building confidence in the vaccine is what brings us here this morning,” said Pence.
The appearance at the White House event, in front of the slogan “safe and effective,” also served as a celebration of the rapid development of effective vaccines far faster than many scientists and administrations thought possible.
“The average vaccine, I’m told by our experts, usually takes between eight and 12 years to develop and then manufacture and distribute,” said Pence. “We’re on track here in the United States to administer millions of doses to the American people in less than one year. It is a miracle indeed.”
The Trump administration has been widely praised for Operation Warp Speed, its program to accelerate the time frame. Yet five days into the biggest vaccination campaign in the country’s history, Trump himself has held no public events to herald the rollout or build confidence in the vaccine.
While he continues to rage against the outcome of the 2020 election, the death toll rose past 300,000 this week.
White House officials say Trump will not get a shot until doctors recommend it, following his own brush with the disease.
President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are expected to have their vaccinations in a public setting as part of a push to reassure the public that the inoculations are safe.
This week, Dr. Anthony Fauci laid out the scale of the challenge that remains. He told NBC News that as much as 85% of the population must be vaccinated in order to reach “herd immunity” and full community-wide protection.
At the White House event, Fauci said the regulatory process to approve the vaccine had been transparent and independent, and he urged the public to follow the vice president’s example in getting vaccinated. The result, he said, was a bittersweet moment in fighting the coronavirus.
“We still are in the middle of a very difficult situation with record numbers of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, but the sweetness is the light at the end of the tunnel, which I can tell you, as we get into January, February, March, and April, that light is going to get brighter and brighter, and the bitterness is going to be replaced by the sweetness,” he said.
