Kamala Harris Got the First Dose of the COVID-19 Vaccine Live on TV

Harris urged viewers to get the vaccine.

  • Vice president-elect Kamala Harris received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine Tuesday.
  • Harris was vaccinated by clinical nurse manager Patricia Cummings at United Medical Center in Washington DC.
  • "It's literally about saving lives. I trust the scientists. And it is the scientists who created and approved this vaccine," Harris said. "So I urge everyone, when it is your turn, get vaccinated."

Kamala Harris received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine live on TV on Tuesday, CNN reports, urging viewers to get vaccinated to save lives. The vice president-elect received the first shot of the Moderna vaccine at United Medical Center in Washington DC, administered by clinical nurse manager Patricia Cummings.

"That was easy," Harris told Cummings after receiving the vaccine in her left arm. "Thank you. I barely felt it."

"I want to encourage everyone to get the vaccine. It is relatively painless. It happens really quickly. It is safe," she said. "It's literally about saving lives. I trust the scientists. And it is the scientists who created and approved this vaccine. So I urge everyone, when it is your turn, get vaccinated."

Harris, whose husband Doug Emhoff was also vaccinated on Tuesday, assured Americans that they could receive the vaccine from "trusted sources of help" within their communities. "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," she said. "Folks who are working in the same hospital where an elderly relative received the kind of care that they needed."

Harris was vaccinated just over a week after president-elect Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, received the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the other COVID-19 vaccine authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration. Biden, who was vaccinated by nurse practitioner Tabe Mase at ChristianaCare Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware, said, "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."

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Kamala Harris

(Image credit: Getty Images/Bill Clark)

Kamala Harris

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Emily Dixon
Morning Editor

Emily Dixon is a British journalist who’s contributed to CNN, Teen Vogue, Time, Glamour, The Guardian, Wonderland, The Big Roundtable, Bust, and more, on everything from mental health to fashion to political activism to feminist zine collectives. She’s also a committed Beyoncé, Kacey Musgraves, and Tracee Ellis Ross fan, an enthusiastic but terrible ballet dancer, and a proud Geordie lass.