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 Biden has said he would make the fight against the coronavirus,
which has killed more than 315,000 Americans and infected more than
17.5 million, his top priority when he takes office on Jan. 20. At
age 78, he is in the high-risk group for the highly contagious
respiratory disease.
A Democrat, Biden will inherit the logistical challenges of
distributing the vaccine to hundreds of millions of Americans, as
well as the task of persuading people who worry its development was
rushed for political reasons to take it.
His black long-sleeved shirt rolled up, Biden received the injection
from Tabe Mase, nurse practitioner and head of Employee Health
Services at Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware, in front of
reporters. Images were carried live on television.
After getting the shot, a dose of the vaccine developed by Pfizer
Inc, Biden praised medical professionals as "heroes".
"I'm doing this to demonstrate that people should be prepared when
it's available to take the vaccine. There's nothing to worry about,"
Biden said. His wife, Jill Biden, who got the injection earlier in
the day, stood by.
But Biden also noted that the vaccine would take time to roll out
and that people should listen to medical experts and not travel for
the upcoming holidays if possible.
He credited the scientists who worked on the vaccines, adding: "I
think that the (Trump) administration deserves some credit, getting
this off the ground with Operation Warp Speed."
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would likely get the vaccine next
week, Biden's transition team said.
Republican President Donald Trump frequently has played down the
severity of the pandemic and overseen a response health experts say
was disorganized, cavalier and sometimes ignored the science behind
disease transmission.
'NEW AMERICAN ECONOMY'
Efforts to limit the economic fallout on Americans from the pandemic
were boosted on Sunday when congressional leaders agreed on a $900
billion package to provide the first new aid in months, with votes
likely on Monday.
Biden on Monday also named additional members to his National
Economic Council (NEC), rounding out his economic policymaking team
with people his transition office said would help lift Americans out
of the economic crisis.
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 David Kamin, an official in
former President Barack Obama's White House,
will be NEC deputy director, and Bharat
Ramamurti, a former top economic adviser to
Senator Elizabeth Warren's 2020 presidential
campaign, will serve as NEC deputy director for
Financial Reform and Consumer Protection,
Biden's team said in a statement.
Joelle Gamble will be special assistant to the president for
economic policy. "This is no time to build back the
way things were before — this is the moment to build a new American
economy that works for all," Biden said in the statement.
Biden had already named Brian Deese, who helped lead Obama's efforts
to bail out the automotive industry and negotiate the Paris climate
agreement, to lead the council, which coordinates the country's
economic policymaking.
Much of the fate of Biden's White House agenda will hinge on the
outcome of a pair of Senate runoff elections in Georgia on Jan. 5
that will determine which party controls the upper chamber of the
U.S. Congress.
Harris traveled on Monday to Columbus, Georgia, to campaign on
behalf of Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, the Democratic candidates
locked in tight races with incumbent Republicans.
At a drive-in rally for the candidates, Harris, currently a
California senator, said she would return to Washington later in the
day to vote on the stimulus package.
Asked by one journalist whether there were plans to "fumigate" the
White House over virus concerns before the Biden administration
moved in, Harris said: "I don't have the current status for that."
Trump was briefly hospitalized in October with COVID-19, and many of
his advisers and White House staff have also contracted the virus.
Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and White House adviser, was
also set to campaign in Georgia for Republican Senators David Perdue
and Kelly Loeffler.
 The outgoing president, making unsubstantiated claims of widespread
electoral fraud, has focused on trying to overturn his election loss
even as daily COVID-19 deaths soared. His campaign's latest
long-shot effort was a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court on Sunday
that legal experts said would fail.
(Reporting by Simon Lewis and Michael Martina; Editing by Colleen
Jenkins, Steve Orlofsky and Grant McCool)
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