Trump gets vaccinated secretly just before retirement… What is the background?

-The background is drawing attention when the news that former US President Donald Trump secretly received a vaccine for coronavirus infection (Corona 19) just before leaving office. Major foreign media analyzed that former President Trump made this choice conscious of his supporters who distrust vaccines.

The US CNN reported on the 1st (local time) that “(at the time of his tenure) Trump supporters strongly resisted the COVID-19 vaccine, and Trump’s approach came out.” When vaccine development was in full swing in the United States last year, public opinion about vaccines was very high among the American people. According to a survey conducted by Ipsos, a polling agency in November of last year, 64% of the US citizens at that time were willing to vaccinate. This is lower than 85% in China, 79% in the UK and 76% in Canada.

At the time, experts pointed out that such a phenomenon occurred because misinformation was prevalent, such as exaggerating the risk of vaccines in social network services (SNS) in the United States. On social media, fake news such as “the vaccine contains microchips so that the location is tracked when inoculated”, “when the vaccine is inoculated, the gene is modified”, and “it was made into the lung tissue of an abortion fetus” was prevalent. In particular, such information was expanded and reproduced around the far-right camp that supported Trump.

The foreign press pointed out that in this situation last year, Trump was concerned that he would be antagonized to supporters if he stepped up and received a vaccine publicly. This means that’political gains and losses (得失)’ were considered before quarantine. At the time, White House officials tried to get rid of the public’s anxiety about the vaccine, but former President Trump blocked it as well. He posted on Twitter in mid-December last year, saying, “People who work in the White House should be vaccinated later.” At the time, the US media inquired about Trump’s vaccination plan, but the White House did not clarify. On the 1st, CNN said, “It was uncertain whether the vaccine development would be completed during Trump’s tenure,” suggesting that such a situation would have been considered. The US Business Insider pointed out that “while Trump was in office, he received regular reports on the development of vaccines, but he did not encourage his own people to get the vaccine until the vaccination began in earnest.” At that time, ahead of the US presidential election, the issue of whether to develop a vaccine for Corona 19 was a hot topic. Former President Trump, who was trying to re-establish a vaccine development as his own goal, said, “The anti-government group within the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) delayed the development of vaccines to prevent their re-establishment. “There is,” he also raised a conspiracy theory on Twitter.

On the other hand, in December of last year, US President Joe Biden, who was then elected at the time, and Vice President Mike Pence at the time, received a vaccine and encouraged vaccination to relieve public anxiety. President Biden also accused Trump of spreading doubts about the vaccine.

Reporter Eun-Taek Lee [email protected]