WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump and former first lady Melania Trump received the coronavirus vaccine while they were still at the White House in January, according to multiple reports.
A Trump adviser on Monday told CNN, New York Times, Axios and other news outlets that the former president received the vaccine before leaving office on Jan. 20. It's unclear which vaccine and how many doses they each received. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, both of which require two doses for full efficacy, had received emergency use authorizations at that time. The Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine just got its EUA this past weekend.
During a speech on Sunday at the CPAC conference, Trump encouraged everyone to get vaccinated, according to CNBC. “We took care of a lot of people,” Trump said during his first post-presidential appearance. “We took care of [President] Joe Biden, because he got his shot, he got his vaccine ... So everybody, go get your shot.”
Both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris received their COVID-19 vaccines on live television to encourage the public to get vaccinated and prevent the spread of the virus.
In mid-December, White House officials said Trump wouldn't be administered the vaccine until it was recommended by his medical team.
Trump was hospitalized with COVID-19 last October and given an experimental monoclonal antibody treatment that he credited for his swift recovery. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory board has said people who received that treatment should wait at least 90 days to be vaccinated to avoid any potential interference.
Trump was released from the hospital on Oct. 5. Ninety days after that was Jan. 3. If he did wait the full 90 days, then he would have only received his first dose before leaving office. The second dose would have come three or four weeks after, depending on which vaccine he was given.
During his CPAC speech, Trump promoted his contributions to the quick pace of vaccinations during his time in office through the Operation Warp Speed task force.
"Never let them forget this was us. We did this," Trump said about the vaccine development, according to CNN.
However, just days after Biden's first day in office his chief of staff Ron Klain said the Trump administration didn't really have a distribution plan to get vaccines out to the American public, Reuters reported.
Klain told "Meet the Press" at the end of January, "the process to distribute the vaccine, particularly outside of nursing homes and hospitals out into the community as a whole, did not really exist when we came into the White House."
Cases and hospitalizations have fallen dramatically since the January peak that followed the winter holidays. Deaths have also declined. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky on Friday said virus variant spreading in the U.S. are among the agency’s biggest concerns.
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.
The United States has more than 28 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
As of Monday, the U.S. had more than 514,000 deaths from the virus. Worldwide, there are more than 114 million confirmed cases with more than 2.5 million deaths.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.