Dr. Fauci receives newest COVID-19 vaccine

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, has received the initial dose of the newest COVID-19 vaccine alongside other federal health leaders who helped oversee its development. "What we're seeing now is the culmination of years of research which have led to a phenomenon that has truly been unprecedented. And that is to go from the realization that we're dealing with a new pathogen, a virus that was described in January of this year, to less than one year later to have vaccines that are going into the arms of so many people, including myself," Fauci said.

The vaccinations Tuesday at the National Institutes of Health campus outside Washington are part of a broader government effort to bolster public confidence in the safety of two COVID-19 vaccines recently cleared by U.S. regulators. Fauci received his first shot of the two-dose regimen alongside NIH director Dr. Francis Collins and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. Each received the vaccine co-developed by NIH and Massachusetts drugmaker Moderna.

Along with a similar shot from Pfizer, the U.S. is working to ramp up the largest vaccination effort in its history to eventually defeat the pandemic, which was killed nearly 320,000 people in the U.S. and upended life worldwide. Both vaccines are strongly protective and were developed in less than a year after the coronavirus emerged, a scientific victory built on years of NIH-funded research.

Six health care workers from NIH's research hospital also received vaccination shots at the event. Members of Congress and other top government officials have been in the first wave of Americans to be inoculated against COVID-19.