US president elect Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden will administer covid-19 vaccine publicly on Monday, his transition team said in a statement.
The announcement comes at a time when the United States has provided regulatory approval to two — Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna — covid-19 vaccine candidates.
According to Biden’s transition team, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will also receive the covid-19 vaccine next month.
Prior to this, a number of high officials in US were vaccinated against the covid-19 infection.
On Friday morning, Vice President Mike Pence, Second Lady Karen Pence and Surgeon General Jerome Adams also received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination on live TV. The aim behind the move was to instill Americans faith in science and in vaccines that have been made after months of tireless research.
The United States started its vaccination drive on Monday after providing approval to Pfizer and BioNTech’s last week. The first person to get the vaccine was Sandra Landsay who in a statement told that she aims to inspire her fellow Americans to take the vaccine and trust the authorities.
In the first phase, the US is vaccinating healthcare workers and nursing home workers who have worked ruthlessly amid the pandemic in a bid to save lives.
For Moderna, the US FDA approval is world’s first. For Pfizer, the US approval came after the UK and Canada authorised nationwide use.
Both these vaccines have proved their efficacy above 90 per cent.
The US, which is also the world’s worst affected country by the pandemic, has ordered 200 million doses of moderna vaccine. Since the vaccine follows two-day regime, the ordered number of doses are sufficient for at least 100 million people.
As of Saturday morning, the virus, which originated in China a year ago, has infected a total of 17,442,180 Americans and killed 313,246 others, according to the Johns Hopkins University.