Donald Trump encourages people to take COVID vaccine, says 'it's something that works'

For the first time since leaving office, former US President Donald Trump spoke in the favour of COVID-19 vaccines asserting that he totally “recommends” getting inoculated. Speaking at an interview with Fox News, Trump excoriated his fellow Republican members to enrol themselves in the country’s mass vaccination drive. His statement comes nearly a week after a poll concluded that GOP members were leading sceptics when it came to coronavirus vaccination. 

Trump, who has largely credited his own administration for COVID-19 vaccines, has remained silent about the national mass inoculation drive. However, on March 16, the 74-year-old blatantly said that he would recommend vaccines to a “lot of people that don’t want to get it” and a “lot of people who voted” for him. Additionally, he also explicitly endorsed shots saying that they were “great”, “safe” and “something that works”. 

‘They want to run me again but...’ 

Meanwhile, the top Republican remained non-committal about seeking to recapture the presidency following his one term in office. Speaking further, Trump said that based on “every poll” people wanted him to run again for the American presidency in 2024. But, he said, “we're going to take a look and we'll see.” 

Trump’s stance on vaccination comes just a day after the White House said that the former President should not need an "engraved invitation" to promote the US' vaccination drive adding that all living former presidents have been doing so. Speaking at the latest White House press briefing, Press Secretary Jen Psaki noted that all former leaders including Barack Obama, George Bush and Bill Clinton have taken the opportunity to deliver public service announcements in favour of coronavirus inoculations but Trump has chosen to keep mum. However, Psaki said that if anytime, the Republican wishes to do so, he shall receive the full support of the White House. 

Vaccination rate in the US

As of March 17, at least 72,135,616 or 21.7 per cent of the US has received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccines while 39,042,345 or 11.8 per cent of them have been fully vaccinated. As per the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the country has received142,918,525  doses of vaccines out of which 110,737,856  have been administered. Till now, 29,319,457 COVID-19 cases have been detected in the country.