Photos of healthcare workers getting COVID-19 vaccine
By: Business Insider
Tags: Pfizer Vaccine, Coronavirus, Healthcare Worker, FDA, Public Health

By Lauren Frias

The first US coronavirus vaccine rolled out across the country this week in record time.

The Food and Drug Administration gave emergency use approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine last Friday. The vaccine is said to be 95% effective, experts said. Batches of the vaccine were packaged and rolled out overnight on Sunday, and healthcare workers on the front lines were among the first to receive the shot.

Healthcare workers administered shots to their colleagues at the front lines, beginning the next long-awaited phase of the pandemic since it began in March.

Ohio

Ohio State employee Lauren Chisholm, left, receives a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccination from Robert Weber AP Photo/Jay LaPrete

Healthcare workers at the UC Health, Cincinnati’s academic healthcare system, were among the first in the state of Ohio to receive the coronavirus vaccines, WLWT 5 reported.

“This is a historic moment for our community, our region and the nation,” UC Health president and CEO Richard P. Lofgren told WLWT 5. “From the beginning, UC and UC Health have participated in finding a cure as a clinical trial site, and our healthcare workers within our hospitals have tirelessly served on the front lines of the battle against COVID-19 for more than nine months.”

“We are proud to have been selected as one of the very first healthcare systems to receive the vaccine.”

Katie Walz, a registered ICU nurse working with UC Health and the first person in Cincinnati to receive the vaccine, said she got the shot to “do my part to reduce the spread of COVID-19.”

“I’ve seen a lot of people this year suffer and die from COVID-19, and I’d like to do whatever we can to slow that process and be an example to others to show that the vaccine is safe and worth getting,” Walz said.

New York

Sandra Lindsay, a nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, is inoculated with the COVID-19 vaccine by Dr. Michelle Chester, at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, on December 14, 2020. Mark Lennihan/AFP/Getty Image

Sandra Lindsay, an ICU nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, New York City, was the first person in New York and among one of the first people in the US to receive a vaccine.

Dr. Michelle Chester administered Lindsay’s shot, and the moment was livestreamed shortly after 9 a.m. local time on Monday.

“She has a good touch, and it didn’t feel any different than taking any other vaccine,” Lindsay said.

“I have no fear,” she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper later Monday. “I trust the science. My profession is deeply rooted in science. I trust science. What I don’t trust is getting COVID-19, because I don’t know how it will affect me and the people around me that I could potentially transfer the virus to.”

Illinois

Dr. Marina Del Rios, from University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System, receives Chicago’s first COVID-19 vaccination from Dr. Nikhila Juvvadi on Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020, at Loretto Hospital, a 122-bed medical facility in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago. Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune via AP

The first shipments of the coronavirus vaccine arrived in Illinois earlier this week, with a hospital on the West Side of Chicago being the first to give the first doses, WGN 9 reported.

Five healthcare workers at Loretto Hospital in Chicago were among the first to receive the coronavirus vaccine in the city.

“Today marks a momentous occasion not just this year but in American history,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Monday. “Eleven months after scientists the world over got their hands on the genetic sequence of the virus, we are seeing the beginning of the end of this pandemic.”

Alaska

Plastic surgeon Daniel Suver receives the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine from Andrea Castelblanco during a vaccine clinic on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020, at Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage, Alaska. Loren Holmes/Anchorage Daily News via AP, Pool

Staff at the Alaska Native Medical Center began receiving the state’s first coronavirus shots Tuesday, and other area hospitals — including Providence Alaska Medical Center and Alaska Regional Hospital — followed suit on Wednesday.

Dr. Benjamin Westley, an infectious disease specialist based in Anchorage, said he had “never been this excited to a get a vaccine,” the Anchorage Daily News reported Wednesday.

“By taking a vaccine, you’re protecting people you love,” Westley told ADN.

California

UCLA nurse Eunice Lee prepares a syringe of the Covid-19 vaccine for health care workers at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020 in Westwood, CA. Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool

Healthcare workers in Los Angeles were among the first to get the US coronavirus vaccine earlier this week.

Helen Cordova, an ICU nurse who works at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center, received the first shot at the hospital, followed by four other healthcare workers, KTLA 5 reported.

“I’m feeling great. I’m excited. I’m hopeful,” Cordova told KTLA 5. “And I really encourage everyone to consider receiving the vaccine so we can start putting an end to this pandemic.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom shared the same optimistic outlook, saying “It’s a day to celebrate. But again, it’s a day to be mindful about the challenge we face.”

Kentucky

Smith showed off his bandage to the press at the University of Louisville Hospital. Jon Cherry/Getty Images

Vaccines also arrived in Louisville, Kentucky, this week amid the nationwide rollout. One healthcare worker told The Washington Post that she was getting the shot in honor of the patients she lost amid the pandemic.

“I just lost my 27th patient today,” Louisville physician Valerie Briones-Pryor told The Post. “So the vaccine I took today was for her family and for the other 26 I lost.”

New Jersey

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, watches as Maritza Beniquez, RN, reacts to receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine from Ambulatory Care Technician Sady Ferguson at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School for COVID-19 at University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, U.S., December 15, 2020. Kirsten Luce/Pool via Reuters

Maritza Beniquez, an emergency room nurse at Newark’s University Hospital, became the first person in New Jersey to receive the coronavirus vaccine.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and other officials applauded after the shot was administered to Beniquez, who said she “barely felt” the needle.

“I’m happy that in another month and a half, I won’t have to be afraid to go into a room anymore. I won’t have to be afraid to perform chest compressions or be present when they’re intubating a patient,” Beniquez said. “I don’t want to be afraid anymore, and I don’t want to have that risk of taking it home to my own family and my own friends.”

Tennessee

Nurse Matt Robinson, Patient Care Coordinator at the Methodist University Hospital COVID-19 Unit, tends to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients as the hospital prepares for the distribution of the Pfizer vaccine in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S., December 14, 2020. Kevin Fogarty/Reuters

Healthcare workers in Memphis, Tennessee, were among the first in line to get the coronavirus vaccine after shipments arrived in the state on Monday, state Gov. Bill Lee announced.

One doctor, who had chosen not to get vaccinated in the past, said his perspective on vaccines was changed with the coronavirus shot.

“I have chosen not to get vaccinated in the past once I put pen to paper and compared the risks. This is not one of those times,” Dr. Stephen Threlkeld, an infectious disease specialist at Baptist Hospital, told WREG-TV.

Pennsylvania

A box is pictured at the American Airlines’ cold storage facility, the largest facility for pharmaceutical products on the East Coast, that could soon be used to store coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines at Philadelphia International Airport in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., December 4, 2020. Rachel Wisniewski/Reuters

More than 111,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine were distributed across the state of Pennsylvania this week, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, with Philadelphia alone receiving its own allotment of 13,650 doses.

Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine said the vaccine should serve as a reminder for people to continue to comply with health safety guidelines to stem the spread of COVID-19.

“Until we can get everybody vaccinated, we need people to stand together … to stop the spread of this virus,” she said, citing the Inquirer report.

Washington

Maj. Jeffery Wittkopp, left, a Physician Assistant in the Emergency Department at Madigan Army Medical Center, receives one of the first doses of the Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19 from nurse Jose Picart, right, Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, south of Seattle. Ted S. Warren/AP

Shipments of the coronavirus vaccine arrived in Washington state on Monday, and frontline workers at hospitals in the state began receiving their first doses the next day.

“The state was expected to receive 62,400 doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine,” KING-TV reported.

Staff at the University of Washington Medical Center were among the first to receive the vaccines, and a UW spokesperson told KING-TV that it would go to nurses, doctors, environmental-services staff, and respiratory-care therapists.

The state is expected to receive more than 200,000 vaccines by the end of the month, but the first shipment is “tight,” Michele Roberts, acting assistant secretary of the state’s Department of Health, told the local news outlet.

“62,000 doses of vaccine is not enough for that whole 1A group, which is at least a half-million people,” Roberts said.

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