Vice President Pence, Wife Karen, Get COVID-19 Vaccine Injections

Vice President Mike Pence was vaccinated for COVID-19 on Friday in a live-television event aimed at reassuring Americans the vaccine is safe.

In remarks after his shot, Pence called the speed with which the vaccine was developed "a medical miracle.”

“The American people can be confident: we have one and perhaps within hours two” safe vaccines,” Pence said, referring to expected FDA approval for Moderna’s vaccine. Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine was the first to be approved.

“Building confidence in the vaccine is what brings us here this morning,” he added.

Pence's wife Karen and Surgeon General Jerome Adams also received shots during the televised White House event.

President Donald Trump's administration helped deliver vaccinations against the coronavirus earlier than even some in his administration thought possible, launching Operation Warp Speed — the government campaign to help swiftly develop and distribute vaccines — this spring with great fanfare in the White House Rose Garden.

But five days into the largest vaccination campaign in the nation's history, Trump has held no public events to trumpet the rollout. He hasn't been inoculated himself. He has tweeted only twice about the shot. Pence, meanwhile, has taken center stage — touring a vaccine production facility this week and receiving a dose himself on live television Friday morning. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell both said Thursday that they will get vaccinated in the next few days.

Pence, along with his wife, Karen, and Surgeon General Jerome Adams, received their shots Friday morning in an office suite in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building from three medical technicians from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Trump did appear at a White House “summit” ahead of the Food and Drug Administration's approval of the Pfizer vaccine last week. That event included an introductory video highlighting the past comments of those — including top government infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci — who doubted a shot would be ready this year.

But many Trump aides are puzzled by his low profile now that the vaccine is actually being injected. They see it as a missed opportunity for the president to claim credit for helping oversee the speedy development and deployment of the vaccine that is expected to finally contain the virus that has killed more than 310,000 Americans.

Trump himself has tried to minimize any credit that might go to Democrat Joe Biden, who expects to receive his shot as soon as next week.

“Don’t let Joe Biden take credit for the vaccines,” Trump has told reporters. “Don’t let him take credit for the vaccines because the vaccines were me, and I pushed people harder than they’ve ever been pushed before.”

Despite Trump's claims, FDA scientists were the ones who came up with the idea for Operation Warp Speed, the White House-backed effort through which millions of doses of coronavirus vaccines and treatments are being manufactured even as they are still being evaluated. And much of the groundwork for the shots was laid over the past decade, including through research on messenger RNA, or mRNA, used in the vaccines developed by both Pfizer and Moderna. Pfizer developed its vaccine outside Operation Warp Speed but is partnering with the federal government on manufacturing and distribution.

Presidents and their family members have often made a display of their vaccinations to boost public confidence. President Dwight Eisenhower highlighted that one of his grandchildren was among the first wave of American children vaccinated for polio. In 2009, President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, vaccinated both their young daughters, who were in a higher risk group, for the swine flu.