• Pence, Pelosi, McConnell received Pfizer vaccine to reassure Americans of its safety.
WASHINGTON — Vice President Mike Pence became the highest-ranking U.S. official to receive the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine Friday in a live TV event aimed at reassuring Americans the shot is safe. He celebrated the milestone as “a medical miracle” that could eventually contain the ragingpandemic.
Conspicuously missing from the victory lap: President Donald Trump, who has remained largely out of sight five days into the largest vaccination campaign in the nation’s history.
Mr. Pence, meanwhile, has taken an increasingly visible role in highlighting the safety and efficacy of the shots, including touring a vaccine production facility thisweek.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., also received COVID-19 vaccinations Friday. And Presidentelect Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, will be getting the vaccine Monday, while Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, are set to receive it theweek after next.
“I didn’t feel a thing. Well done,” Mr. Pence told the technicians from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center who administered his Pfizer-BioNTech shot early Friday morning. Mr. Pence didn’t flinch during the quick prick, nor did his wife, Karen, or Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who also received shots during the televised White House event in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
“Hope is on the way,” Mr. Pence later said. “The American people can be confident: We have one and, perhaps within hours, two safe vaccines,” he added, referring to the FDA’s authorization of a secondvaccine by Moderna.
He did not respond to shouted questions about why the president wasn’t headlininga similar event.
Dr. Adams, who is Black, emphasized the “the importance of representation” in outreach to at-risk communities and encouraged Americans to avoid disinformation aroundthe vaccines.
Five days into the largest vaccination campaign in the nation’s history, Mr. Trump has been absent from the effort to sell the American public on what aides hope will be a key part of his legacy. He has held no public events to trumpet the rollout. He hasn’t been inoculated himself. And he has tweeted fewer than a handful of times aboutthe shot.
Mr. Trump’s relative silence comes as he continues to stew about his defeat in the Nov. 3 election and embraces increasingly desperate efforts to overturn the people’s will.