US Vice President-elect Kamala Harris receives first dose of Covid vaccine

US Vice President-elect Kamala Harris has received the first dose of the Moderna vaccine against the novel coronavirus.

According to the Biden-Harris transition team, Harris was vaccinated on Tuesday by Patricia Cummings, a clinical nurse manager at the United Medical Center.

In a tweet late Tuesday, Harris said: "Today I got the Covid-19 vaccine. I am incredibly grateful to our frontline health care workers, scientists, and researchers who made this moment possible.

"When you're able to take the vaccine, get it. This is about saving lives."

Harris' vaccination, which was also broadcast live on TV, came almost a week after President-elect Joe Biden received his.

After receiving the shot, Harris said she wants to "encourage everyone to get the vaccine. It is relatively painless. It happens really quickly. It is safe".

The Vice President-elect also confirmed that her husband, Doug Emhoff, would be receiving the first dose of the Moderna vaccine on Tuesday, CNN reported.

"I want to remind people that right in your community is where you can take the vaccine, where you will receive the vaccine, by folks you may know, folks who are otherwise working in the same hospital where your children were born.

"Folks who are working in the same hospital where an elderly relative received the kind of care that they needed," CNN quoted Harris as saying.

The US Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use authorization (EUA) for two Covid-19 vaccines: one from Pfizer/BioNTech and one from Moderna.

The two vaccines have shown similar efficacy levels of near 95 per cent, and both require two doses administered several weeks apart.

On December 18, Vice President Mike Pence, Second Lady Karen Pence, Surgeon General Jerome Adams,House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination all on live TV, in a bid to instill confidence among Americans.

President Donald Trump, who had tested positive for the virus in October, is yet to get vaccinated.

As of Wednesday morning, the US, currently the hardest-hit country in the world by the pandemic, has registered a total of 19,299,960 confirmed coronavirus cases and 334,830 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

Both tallies are the highest in the world.

--IANS

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