Dolly Parton, who helped fund the Moderna vaccine, receives a “dose of her own medicine”.



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Country music star Dolly Parton has yet another gig: singing the praises of the coronavirus shots and getting the shot on camera.

Last year Mrs. Parton donated $ 1 million at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which worked with drugmaker Moderna to develop one of the first coronavirus vaccines to be cleared in the United States. The federal government ultimately invested $ 1 billion in creating and testing the vaccine, but research effort leader Dr Mark Denison said the singer’s donation funded its critical early stages.

On Tuesday, Ms. Parton, 75, received a Moderna shot at Vanderbilt Health in Tennessee. “Dolly is getting a dose of her own medicine,” she wrote on Twitter.

“Well, it’s me,” she told her fans in an accompanying video, a minute before a doctor arrived to inoculate her. “I’m finally going to get the vaccine.”

“I’m so excited,” she added in the video, which racked up over a million views in about four hours. “I’ve been waiting for a while. I’m old enough to get it and I’m smart enough to get it.

She also broke into the song (naturally), replacing the word “Jolene” in one of her best-known choruses with “vaccine”.

“Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine,” she sang, embellishing the latest of her Tennessee brand. “I beg you, do not hesitate.”

“Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine,” she added, “because once you’re dead, it’s a little too late.”

Right before the doctor arrived to inoculate her – or “pop me in my arm,” as she puts it – she doubled down on her message.

“I know I’m trying to be funny now, but I’m very serious about the vaccine,” she said. “I think we all want to go back to normal – whatever it is is – and that would be a great hit in the arm, right?

“I just want to say to all of you cowards: don’t be a chicken squat,” she added. “Come out and take your picture.”



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