Vice president Mike Pence to get public Covid vaccine shot

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Vice president Mike Pence will publicly get his Covid vaccine shot on Friday, it has been announced.

Mr Pence and his wife, second lady Karen Pence, will both get the shot at the White House, says the administration.

They will get their shots in front of the cameras to help “promote the safety and efficacy of the vaccine and build confidence among the American people.”

Mr Pence wants his vaccination to be carried live by US television networks to build “vaccine confidence”, an administration official told Axios.

And they will also be joined by surgeon general Jerome Adams, who will also receive the vaccine.

The news came after it emerged that Joe Biden will also get a public vaccination, as early as next week, transition officials told the Associated Press.

The president-elect said on Tuesday that he had been advised by Dr Anthony Fauci to get the vaccine “sooner than later.”

Mr Biden has spoken about the need for him to get the shot publicly to help bolster confidence in it.

 “I don’t want to get ahead of the line, but I want to make sure we demonstrate to the American people that it is safe to take," he said.

It is not clear whether Donald Trump will take the vaccine publicly. Asked about it on Tuesday at a press conference, White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said he would take it when his medical team advised him to but could not say whether he would be willing to do so in front of the cameras.

The outgoing president has repeatedly played down the coronavirus, mocking people for wearing masks, repeatedly insisting the virus would just disappear “like a miracle” and promoting treatments like hydroxychloroquine in defiance of official medical advice.

Despite claiming he was taking hydroxychloroquine himself in an effort to ward off the virus, Mr Trump was infected with Covid-19 in October and had to be hospitalised before recovering.

Some 17 million Americans have now tested positive for the coronavirus and more than 300,000 have lost their lives to it.