The director of the National Institute of Health (NIH) made an impassioned plea to Americans on Sunday, asking them to “hit the reset button” on their concerns regarding the coronavirus vaccine.
“Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd noted during an interview with Dr. Francis Collins that a Miami-Dade County study that found less than half of health care workers were not interested in receiving the vaccine.
“This is a source of great concern for all of us and I would like to plead just to people who are listening to this this morning to really hit the reset button on whatever they think they knew about this vaccine that might cause them to be so skeptical,” said Collins.
“The data is out there now. It’s been discussed in a public meeting all the details of the safety and the efficacy for anybody who wants to look. This is a very powerful outcome of this incredibly intense a year-long experience to develop this.”
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was granted emergency-use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration on Friday with the first batch of doses leaving the Pfizer plant in Michigan early Sunday.
The first round of vaccines have prioritized for health care workers and nursing homes. Vaccine trials have indicated the vaccine is 95 percent effective at preventing the coronavirus.