Hundreds of healthcare workers get the jab
Vaccinations come as nation surpasses 300,000 deaths
Some of the very medical centres that have endured the worst of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States found the gloom that has long filled their corridors replaced by elation and hope on Monday as healthcare workers became the first to take part in a mass vaccination campaign aimed at ending the pandemic.
Hundreds of those who have been on the front lines of fighting Covid19 — a nurse from an intensive care unit in New York, an emergency room doctor from Ohio, a hospital housekeeper in Iowa — received inoculations in emotional ceremonies watched by people around the country.
“I feel like healing is coming,” said Sandra Lindsay, an intensive care nurse who was among the first healthcare workers to be vaccinated Monday morning, at Long Island Jewish Medical Centre in Queens, New York, an early centre of the virus.
But the vaccinations came as the nation surpassed 300,000 coronavirus deaths, a toll larger than any other country. Even as applause rang out at hospitals nationwide, many intensive care units remained near capacity and public health experts warned that life would not return to normal until well into next year.
Plunking down in wooden chairs and rolling up their sleeves were physicians, nurses, aides, cleaners and at least one chief executive who said he was getting the vaccine early to encourage everyone on his staff to do the same.
Dr Jason Smith, the first Kentuckian to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, showed off the smiley-face Band-Aid a healthcare worker applied to his arm. “Didn’t even feel it,” he said. A group of nuns in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, blessed the vaccine as it arrived, before it was whisked into a freezer.
Seth Jackson, a nurse in Iowa, found himself crying on the way to the hospital to get his shot. Robin Mercier, a Rhode Island nurse, rejoiced in feeling one step closer to being able to kiss her grandchild.
“This is the marking of getting back to normal,” said Angela Mattingly, a housekeeper at the University of Iowa Hospital, who was fifth in line as shots were dispensed on the 12th floor.
One of those who had spent months studying the safety of the vaccine was herself vaccinated.
“This is the culmination of a lot of hard work in our clinical trials,” said Dr Patricia Winokur, 61, the principal investigator of the clinical trial of the vaccine and a professor at the University of Iowa. “Our team has worked hard, and I am so proud to have been a part of it.”
Near the White House, five health workers at George Washington University Hospital were given shots at a national kickoff event staged by the Department of Health and Human Services. Alex Azar, the health secretary, said the vaccinations in Washington were “representative of what’s happening across America right now”, adding that he would visit other vaccination sites in the coming weeks. The first vaccinations come at the bleakest moment of the pandemic in the United States. The country is averaging more than 2400 deaths a day, even more than in the northern spring. More than twice as many deaths are being announced each
I want people who look like me and are associated with me to know it’s safe. Sandra Lindsay, an intensive care nurse
day than just a month ago.
For many Americans who have lost loved ones to Covid-19, news of the vaccination rollout was bittersweet. It did not come soon enough for Mary Smith’s husband, Mike, who died from the virus in November at the age of 64 after rapidly becoming fatigued, short of breath and feverish.
“It was so close,” Smith, who lives outside Peoria, Illinois, said.
She voiced frustration with people who said they did not trust the vaccine. An Associated Press poll, released last week, found that half of Americans were ready to take a vaccine, a percentage that public health experts said could jeopardise its benefits.
“These people who say, ‘ I’m not getting it,’ all I can say is, ‘Why? Have you lost your mind?’” Smith said. “Have you not seen how many people have died? This is real.’”
Lindsay, the nurse from Long Island Jewish Medical Centre, who is black, volunteered to be among the first New Yorkers to be vaccinated, saying that she wanted to encourage people sceptical of vaccines to get a shot, and particularly black Americans, who have died from the virus at disproportionate rates.
“I’ve been waiting for this day not only for myself, but to show people it’s safe,” said Lindsay, the director of critical care nursing. “I want people who look like me and are associated with me to know it’s safe.”
About 600 sites — many of them hospitals — were scheduled to receive the first of nearly 3 million doses of the vaccine this week. Some 500,000 doses were delivered on Monday to 142 of the sites around the country. The rollout, starting with high-risk healthcare workers and nursing home residents, is a monumental logistical challenge, and there so far is no uniform approach to publicly reporting where vaccines have been received and how many doses have been administered.
By day’s end, it was unclear exactly how many Americans had received an initial dose of the approved vaccine, made by Pfizer-BioNTech.
Another vaccine, made by biotech company Moderna, is likely to receive emergency authorisation on Friday. The shipping of 6 million doses to 3285 US locations would start on the weekend, officials said, with the first vaccinations taking place by next Monday.
The available supply of the PfizerBioNTech vaccine is not enough to inoculate all of the doctors, nurses, security guards, receptionists and other workers at risk of daily exposure to the virus, forcing hospitals to decide whom to give priority.
There was no single method. The group in Washington was selected by an algorithm based on a survey of hospital employees that asked about age and underlying medical conditions. At the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre, an advisory group devised an order that took into consideration prevention of transmission and underlying conditions, as well as the hospital’s ability to continue its own operations, said Dr Graham Snyder, its medical director of infection prevention.
The Pittsburgh hospital received 975 doses of the Pfizer vaccine on Monday, and would be giving a necessary second shot to the first wave of recipients in the coming weeks. Snyder believed that the medical centre’s entire workforce — there are about 60,000 front-line healthcare workers in the network — could be vaccinated within a couple of months.
For all it portended at the end of a year of misery and death, the operation was surprisingly mundane. A little trickle of blood here and there, followed by small talk and cotton swabs, and it was done.