Fauci joins Obama, Bush, Clinton in promoting vaccine confidence with public jab pledge

United States' top infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci expressed his willingness to take a COVID-19 vaccine publicly on Tuesday, December 8. The director of US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has joined the ranks of former US presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton in public vaccination pledge in a bid to assure people that the drug can be trusted. 

As per Newsweek reports, Fauci said he would be "more than happy" to take a COVID-19 vaccine publicly, stressing that it will be safe if and when approved.

Read: Obama Might Take COVID-19 Vaccine On TV To Encourage Widescale Inoculation

While several promising vaccine candidates are in testing stages, the United Kingdom became the first nation to roll out a mass vaccination programme against novel coronavirus on Tuesday. Meanwhile, US authorities are set to discuss Emergency Use Authorizations (EUA) applications for the Pfizer-BioNTech candidate on December 10 and the Moderna vaccine candidate on December 17.

This comes as the United States sees COVID-19 deaths soaring to more than 2,200 a day on average, with cases per day eclipsing 200,000 on average for the first time on record. As per reports, experts believe the crisis is certain to get worse because of the fallout from Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's.

Read: Obama, Bush, Clinton Willing To Take COVID-19 Vaccine On TV To Promote Public Confidence

Former US Presidents promote vaccine

Earlier last week, during a televised interview Obama said that he might take a COVID-19 vaccine on television to encourage the public to get an immunization. The 44th US president asserted that if the US Food and Drug Administration declared the vaccines as safe and effective, then he would definitely get inoculated.

Meanwhile, in an interview with CNN, George Bush’s former chief of staff said that the 43rd US President had reached the White House coronavirus task force members to discuss how to promote the vaccine and had volunteered to take the jab publicly. In a parallel development, Bill  Clinton’s press secretary Angel Urena also told the media outlet earlier this week that he too would be willing to take the COVID-19 vaccine in a public, setting to promote it. 

US President-elect Joe Biden has also come forward in promoting large-scale inoculation and said that he too would be "happy" to join the ex-presidents by publicly taking a vaccine.

Read: UK: Vaccine Patient Thought Being First Was 'a Joke'

Read: In Pics | UK Rolls Out First COVID-19 Vaccine Doses Under Mass Vaccination Programme