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McConnell Lauds COVID-19 Vaccine As ‘Safe And Effective,’ Says He’ll Take It In ‘Coming Days’

   DailyWire.com
WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 15: UU.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) removes his face mask as he arrives for a news conference with other Senate Republicans at the U.S. Capitol on December 15, 2020 in Washington, DC.
Tom Brenner-Pool/Getty Images

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will soon receive a COVID-19 vaccine, an inoculation which has been offered to him under continuity of government procedures, his office revealed on Thursday afternoon.

McConnell did not say when he would receive the vaccine, other than in “the coming days,” but encouraged more Americans to take the vaccine when offered to them, invoking his battle with polio as a child before inoculations against it were available.

“As a polio survivor, I know both the fear of a disease and the extraordinary promise of hope that vaccines bring,” said the Kentucky senator. “I truly hope all Kentuckians and Americans will heed this advice and accept this safe and effective vaccine.”

A recent Axios-Ipsos survey found that the number of Americans who say they would take a COVID-19 vaccine, once it’s available, has doubled in recent months, up from only 13% in September. Another 11% say they would take the vaccine after a few weeks, and yet another 25% say they would take it “a few months after” becoming available.

“The only way to beat this pandemic is to follow the advice of our nation’s health care professionals: get vaccinated and continue to follow CDC guidelines,” said McConnell.

Vice President Mike Pence and second lady Karen Pence, as well as Surgeon General Jerome Adams, will receive inoculations against COVID-19 on Friday. As will everyone else who receives the vaccine, they will be scheduled to receive a second dose three weeks later.

Currently, only the Pfizer vaccine has been granted emergency use authorization. However, an FDA panel of independent experts recommended Thursday that the Moderna vaccine candidate, which uses mRNA technology like the Pfizer vaccine, should be approved for emergency use as well.

Unlike the Pfizer vaccine, the Moderna vaccine candidate does not require ultra-cold storage in order to be delivered to vaccination sites. According to The New York Times, the Moderna vaccine candidate could receive FDA emergency use authorization by Friday, and the first doses of it could be shipped by the weekend.

“Moderna can go to more places,” said Dr. Mandy Cohen, North Carolina’s secretary of health and human services, reports the Times. “We hope to be in all 100 counties with some amount of vaccine — small allocations at first — by the end of next week, assuming Moderna gets approved this week and we get our allocations delivered over the course of next week.”

Should the Moderna vaccine ultimately receive emergency authorization, U.S. officials expect 40 million vaccines will be available — enough for 20 million Americans — before the end of the year. The U.S. has recorded 310,189 COVID-19 deaths this year, which includes 3,611 Americans who died on Wednesday, according to data from The New York Times.

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