Former President Obama, accompanied by the country’s top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, surprised a vaccination clinic in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, visiting the center and encouraging people to get vaccinated, reports The Washington Post.
Obama spoke to the crowd of parents, students and teachers at Kimball Elementary School who were waiting to receive their second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, telling the onlookers that the vaccine was “one more thing to be thankful for,” during the holidays, reports ABC News.
“Nobody really loves getting a shot. I don’t love getting a shot. But I do it because it’s going to help keep me healthy,” Obama said to the crowd of more than 50 people.
Obama and Fauci greeted children and parents, giving them coronavirus-conscious fist bumps, posing for photos with people and passing out stickers to the children who received their shot, reports ABC.
An education reporter for NPR D.C. shared a video of Obama’s surprise appearance in the school’s gymnasium to her Twitter account.
By the middle of November, two weeks after the Pfizer-BioNTech pediatric vaccine received CDC approval for children ages 5 to 11, 10 percent of those eligible had received their first shot.
White House coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients lauded the numbers compared to how it took 50 days to reach 10 percent of adults with one COVID-19 shot, and with the three months it took in the 1950s to reach 2.5 million children vaccinated against polio.