Saturday Night Live (SNL) was quick to capitalize on the FDA’s recent approval of the coronavirus vaccine with a skit spoofing an interview between CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and U.S. Coronavirus Task Force members Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx.
The cold-open featured SNL cast members Beck Bennett as Blitzer, Kate McKinnon as Fauci and Heidi Gardner as Birx.
“Today’s top story is the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine which the FDA just approved for emergency use. It’s just like the PS5 — everybody wants it, nobody can get it and if you’re rich you already had it a month ago,” opened Bennett’s Blitzer, who then introduced Fauci and Birx to talk about the “good news.”
“Yes the vaccine is approved, and I’m officially joining the Biden administration to continue the fight against COVID,” said Fauci.
“And I think I’ll be joining as well,” added Birx. “Remember when Trump said to inject bleach and I did a ‘stanky’ little face and I almost whispered ‘no.'”
Fauci said they were going to be doing this vaccine “World War Two style” by making England go in first to see “what’s what” before swooping in at the end to steal the spotlight.
Fauci and Birx then went into how they were going to roll the vaccine out in the U.S., with shots going first to healthcare workers, and then to anyone named “Mildred, Forest, Blanche, Mabel or Walter,” or “super seniors” as Fauci described.
Blitzer then questions them on what they make of the overall federal vaccine plan, to which Fauci responds that “this president has done about as good a job with this rollout as I did throwing out that first pitch at the National’s game.”
Another question from Blitzer was on how they planned to keep the doses cold, to which Birx responded that “luckily the vaccine comes in Coors Light cold activated cans so if the mountains are blue you know the vaccine is effective.”