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

• Vice president-elect Kamala Harris (opens in new tab) 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 (opens in new tab), 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 (opens in new tab), 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."