French health minister Olivier Véran is the latest politician to share a photo of himself receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, joining what is turning out to be the strangest thirst-trap trend of 2021.
Véran won Twitter's affection for posting the photo on February 8 with the simple caption: "Vacciné." His tweet amassed more than 19,000 likes and more than 4,000 retweets in 24 hours.
The minister's photo was widely shared as male politicians attract attention for posting (at least partly) shirtless photos of themselves receiving the vaccine.
Véran's photo inspired Twitter users to start a thread of male European politicians getting vaccinated.
Esther Choo, a physician and professor in Oregon, kicked off the thread by tweeting the photo of Véran "promoting vaccine uptake as part of 'Operation Smolder.'" Her post has received more than 3,000 likes.
French Health Minister Olivier Veran promoting vaccine uptake as part of “Operation Smolder” pic.twitter.com/uLrBsEBFwB
— Esther Choo MD MPH (@choo_ek) February 9, 2021
Monica Maalouf, a doctor in Chicago, replied: "I believe the citizens are referring to it as operation ooo-la-la." Twitter user Mulling Mueller wrote: "Is it weird that the French can even make vaccines look sexy?"
Another Twitter user responded to Choo's post with a photo of the Croatian finance minister, Zdravko Marić, receiving his shot—although, unlike Véran, Marić is wearing a T-shirt under his shirt.
The Croatian finance minister 👀 pic.twitter.com/DtjDF9B3SZ
— e n d o ginger💛💛 (@endogingerfiles) February 9, 2021
A Reddit thread dedicated to the photo of Marić has received nearly 40,000 upvotes and more than 1,000 comments.
Top-voted comments included: "Minister of Fine-Abs," "Ask him how to make capital gains," "With those guns he might as well be Minister of Defense" and "Captain ... Croatia?"
It doesn't stop there. Another Twitter user, Fotini Iconomopoulos, shared a news report about the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, receiving the vaccine, suggesting that Véran was trying to "keep up" with him.
He's trying to keep up with the Greek PM @kmitsotakis pic.twitter.com/Lh23sKagP6
— Fotini Iconomopoulos (@Fotiniicon) February 9, 2021
Numerous articles mentioned the semi-shirtless image of Mitsotakis after he received the vaccine in January.
Now, with the photo of Véran, some Twitter users have come up with an idea of how these images can be put to good use.
Twitter user Cara wrote: "Can we get a calendar of this stuff? The proceeds can go to supporting further development and roll-out of COVID testing, vaccination and treatment or something. I think the [fire department] has new competition." Another user, called E.S., had a similar idea and tweeted: "We need a hot men vaxxers calendar to promote getting vaccinated."
With three viral photos so far—and it's only February—there may just be enough photos of shirtless politicians getting vaccinated by the end of the year to make Twitter users' dreams a reality.
