First Lady Jill Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser, toured a children’s hospital in Washington D.C. administering the Pfizer vaccine to teens on Thursday, just over a week after U.S. health officials authorized the shot for kids 12 to 15 years old.
On the tour, Biden and Fauci were led through Children’s National Hospital’s vaccine registration and administration sites, where they met hospital staff and teenagers waiting to get the vaccine.
“Have you met our American hero here?” the first lady said of Dr. Fauci, who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and has advised seven U.S. presidents so far, to which staff broke out in applause.
Fauci has been one of the most vocal federal health officials since the pandemic began in early 2020, despite some conflict with former president Trump, often doing dozens of media interviews per week while still visiting patients and keeping up with his role as director of NIAID.
“Frontline people like yourselves are the ones that are making it work,” Dr. Fauci told the hospital’s vice president of patient care.
Dr. Biden and Dr. Fauci then met and spoke with a seventh-grader named Skylah Jackson and her family just before she got her first dose.
“Ready to get yours? I’ve already gotten mine,” she said, noting her time as a teacher and asking her about school.
The other parents, teens and the staff in the room applauded when Jackson got the shot. Dr. Biden then chatted with a 16-year-old named Ashley Velasquez, who was there to get her second Pfizer dose and who she told to have a great summer.
Earlier this week, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said that more than 600,000 teens had gotten the vaccine in the week since it was authorized by the Food and Drug Administration.
On Thursday’s hospital tour, Dr. Fauci said that parents of children under 12 should expect to know whether the shot is safe for their kids by the end of this year.
“We’re doing age de-escalation studies,” Fauci said, explaining that the 9 to 12 year-old age group would come next, before children six to nine and then two to six years old.
“By the end of this calendar year, it's likely that we'll have enough information to vaccinate children,” he added.
More than 160 million people — or nearly half of the country — have gotten at least one dose, according to CDC data.
Earlier this week, Dr. Walensky and other health officials urged more young people to get the shot in order to continue driving case numbers and deaths down.
“We have truly made tremendous strides across the country to ensure people have access to vaccines,” she said. “If you haven't yet been vaccinated, perhaps you will consider being our reason to celebrate one more.”
Dr. Fauci also addressed the CDC’s rollout of the new mask guidance on Thursday and whether it was misinterpreted.
“I think it’s just a situation where the CDC was trying to impress on people how important it is to get vaccinated,” he said. “Unfortunately, some people interpreted that everybody can remove their mask, which is not the case. We’re clarifying it now, and I think we’re getting on the right track.”
Asked when she and the president may start eating out at restaurants, Dr. Biden said she did feel safe enough to dine out.
“But I don’t know, Joe’s so busy,” the first lady said, met with laughter.