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Country music icon and philanthropist Dolly Parton received a Covid-19 vaccine dose yesterday and marked the occasion by posting a photo of herself getting the jab with a fantastic caption and then re-imagining one of her most famous songs to encourage others to receive the vaccine too.
In the first social media post, Ms Parton is seen getting the Moderna shot with a caption that reads: “Dolly gets a dose of her own medicine.” This is because the Grammy-award winner helped fund the Moderna vaccine trial, donating $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee for the effort.
In a second post, Parton shared a video of her getting the jab. While joking about the vaccine and how important it is to get, she evens adapt one of her most famous songs for the occasion.
"I'm old enough to get it and smart enough to get it," Parton, who is 75, said. She then starts singing to the tune of Jolene:
"Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, I'm begging of you, please don't hesitate!
"Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, 'cause once your dead then that's a bit too late."
Her message is clear: “I want to say to all of you cowards out there, don’t be such a chicken squat! Get out there and get your shot.”
Once masked up she introduces Dr Naji Abumrad, professor of surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, to administer the vaccine. Dr Abumrad goes through all the steps to deliver it safely while Dolly continues to chat and joke about the quick and mostly painless procedure.
The Moderna vaccine is one of the three approved COVID-19 vaccines in the US currently, along with the Pfizer/BioNtech jab and the Johnson & Johnson Jensen vaccine. Clinical trials have shown that the Moderna vaccine has an efficacy of 94.1 percent against severe COVID-19. The US has currently administered over 78 million doses of the vaccine.
The Moderna vaccine is an mRNA vaccine, where a small and harmless fragment of the virus's genetic code, the mRNA, is injected into the human body. This genetic code gives instructions to our cells to make the virus’s spike protein, which is used by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, to attack our cells. The protein alone can’t hurt us but trains the immune system to recognize it as something foreign and get rid of it.
For more information about COVID-19, check out the IFLScience COVID-19 hub where you can follow the current state of the pandemic, the progress of vaccine development, and further insights into the disease.
