Once a successful COVID-19 vaccine is made available, President Donald Trump has made it known he would “absolutely” take it.
When asked if he would “consider being one of the first to take this vaccine to send a message to the American public” during an interview with Fox News’ Dr. Marc Siegel, Trump first responded by noting conflicting potential reactions if he were the first or last person to take it.
“If I’m the first one, they will say, ‘He’s so selfish, he wanted to get the vaccine first,'” he said. “And then other people would say, ‘Hey, that’s a very brave thing to do.'”
The president then added that he would be open to taking the vaccine.
“I would absolutely — if they wanted me to, if they thought it was right, I would take it first or I would take it last,” he said, adding, “You know that if I take it first, I will be — either way, I lose on that one, right?”
Trump continued, “If I take it first, and if I take it — if I don’t take it, they will say, he doesn’t believe in the program. But whatever I think is best, whatever we all agree is best, I would certainly do that.”
On Wednesday, the Trump administration made a deal costing $1.95 billion with Pfizer and another pharmaceutical company for 100 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the year.
Watch Trump’s interview below:
Trump also said during the interview that he “almost would prefer the therapeutics even first,” before a vaccine, because “you go into the hospital, you make people better.”
A CNN poll published in mid-May revealed that two-thirds of Americans said they would get a vaccine for COVID-19 if it became available. Asked previously if that would then get the U.S. to “herd immunity,” Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN, “No, unlikely.”
Fauci added, “That’s one of the reasons why we have to make sure we engage the community as we’re doing now to get community people to help us for people to understand that we are doing everything we can to show that it’s safe and that it’s effective and it’s for the good of them as individuals and in society to take the vaccine. So we have a lot of work to do.”
This week, Fauci told CNN regarding vaccine development, “If you want to do it correctly, with safety, and real attention to safety and efficacy, I think we are going as fast as we possibly can.”