US President-elect Joe Biden on Monday received the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine during a televised event in his home state of Delaware at Christiana Care Hospital in Newark.
The 78-year-old former Vice President was administered the Pfizer BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, which requires second dose weeks apart to reach 98 per cent efficacy. Biden's wife Jill Biden was vaccinated earlier on the same day.
"What I want to say is we owe these folks an awful lot," Biden, donning a black mask, said after getting the shot.
Thanking the medical staff for their tireless work, Biden said, "The scientists and the people who put this together, the front line workers, the people who were the ones who actually did the clinical work, it's just amazing. I wish we had time to take you through the whole hospital to see how busy and incredible you all are. And we owe you big. We really do."
Biden, who is considered in the high-risk age category for Covid-19, got inoculated after top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci strongly recommended that he do so.
Fauci has been selected as Biden's chief medical adviser when the president-elect takes office in January.
Biden added, "I'm looking forward to the second shot. So is Jill.”
Jen Psaki, the 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.
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Vice President Mike Pence and second lady Karen Pence, together with Surgeon General Jerome Adams, were administered the vaccine Friday at an on-camera event.
After US FDA’s approval for emergency use authorization, the first dose of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine began to be injected to health care workers across the US last week and have been delivered to 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.