Despite her criticisms of it as being potentially unsafe during the presidential campaign, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) took the COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday.
As she received her first shot for the Moderna vaccine at United Medical Center that was broadcasted on three cable networks, Harris encouraged everyone to get the vaccine.
“I want to encourage everyone to get the vaccine. It is relatively painless, it happens really quickly. It is safe,” she said.
“This is about saving lives. It’s literally about saving lives. I trust the scientists, and it is the scientists who created and approved this vaccine, everyone,” she added. “So I urge everyone, when it is your turn, get vaccinated. It’s about saving your life, the life of your family members, and the life of your community.”
During the vice-presidential debate, Harris made a spectacle out of questioning the efficacy of the vaccine due to President Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for it.
“If Dr. Fauci, the doctors, tell us that we should take it, I’ll be the first in line to take it,” Harris said. “But if Donald Trump tells us we should take it, I’m not going to take it.”
“The fact that you continue to undermine public confidence in a vaccine, if a vaccine emerges during the Trump administration, I think is unconscionable, and Senator, I just ask you to stop playing politics with peoples’ lives,” the vice president shot back.
Prior to that, Harris said on CNN that she would not trust Trump’s word on the vaccine’s efficacy.
“I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump and it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he’s talking about,” she said.
Harris even went as far to say that scientists and medical professionals would not be given the “last word” on the vaccine’s efficacy, a position that has quickly been proven false in the wake of the vaccine’s rollout.
“If past is prologue that they will not, they’ll be muzzled, they’ll be suppressed, they will be sidelined,” Harris said. “Because he’s looking at an election coming up in less than 60 days and he’s grasping to get whatever he can to pretend he has been a leader on this issue when he is not.”
Harris taking the vaccine followed former Vice President Joe Biden, who said people have “nothing to worry about.”
“I’m doing this to demonstrate that people should be prepared, when it’s available, to take the vaccine. There’s nothing to worry about,” Biden said.
According to a Fox News national poll, roughly “61% of Americans plan to get vaccinated against COVID-19, up from 54% in September.”
“Among the 28% who do not plan to be vaccinated, the top reasons include that its development was rushed (23%), a lack of trust it will work (21%), opposition to vaccines generally (13%), distrust of the government (10%), and concern about side effects (9%),” Fox reported.