Three former U.S. presidents have volunteered to be vaccinated on camera in order to promote public confidence in coronavirus vaccines, once they become available.
CNN reports that Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton have all expressed their willingness to be filmed getting a COVID vaccine shot.
Freddy Ford, chief-of-staff to former president George W. Bush, told CNN that Bush himself had approached Dr. Anthony Fauci, asking how he might be able to help promote a vaccine. Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and has been for many the public face of the nation’s official coronavirus response. Bush also apparently contacted Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, with the same question.
Following suit, Bill Clinton’s press secretary told CNN on Wednesday that Clinton would also be willing to be publicly vaccinated in order to promote public confidence in vaccine safety.
Obama, too, has suggested he may do the same. “I may end up taking [the vaccine] on TV or having it filmed, just so that people know that I trust this science, and what I don’t trust is getting Covid,” he said, in an interview with SiriusXM host Joe Madison that is scheduled to be broadcasted on Thursday. He added that if Dr. Fauci says a vaccine is safe, he will believe him.