Fauci to get Moderna COVID-19 vaccine Tuesday

Dr. Anthony Fauci will be receiving Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases announced.

Fauci, the NIAID’s director, will be inoculated alongside US Health Secretary Alex Azar, National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, and frontline workers at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, the health agency said on Twitter Monday.

Fauci hopes doing so is going “to build confidence in the vaccine, which is the best hope against this pandemic,” the post said.

Azar echoed the thought in his own tweet.

“We believe it’s important to publicly receive the vaccine as part of our efforts to demostrate that these vaccines are safe and effective,” he said.

The Food and Drug Administration approved the Moderna vaccine on Friday, making it the second approved inoculation for the global pandemic.

An earlier vaccine by Pfizer-BioNTech was approved by the FDA Dec 11.

President-elect Joe Biden and incoming first lady Jill Biden received the vaccine on live television on Monday at ChristianaCare Wilmington Hospital in Delaware.

Vice President Mike Pence received the first round of shots last week, but doctors have recommended that President Trump hold off for now.

That’s because of the experimental treatment Trump received when he contracted the virus in October, which requires patients to wait at least 90 days before being vaccinated.

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