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I feel great: Queens ICU nurse first person in US to receive COVID vaccine

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Sandra Lindsay ICU nurse
Pictured, Sandra Lindsay ICU nurse at receiving Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine.
Sandra Lindsay ICU nurse
Pictured, Sandra Lindsay ICU nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center receiving Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

Sandra Lindsay ICU nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center receiving Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine who is the first person vaccinated in the USA as a nation braces amid rising infections and deaths. 

A Queens, NYC nurse was the first person in the United States to receive a COVID vaccine on Monday as the nation hopes to stem exponential infections and deaths in recent days amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

ICU nurse Sandra Lindsay received the shot at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens.

‘This vaccine is exciting because I believe this is the weapon that will end the war,’ Gov. Cuomo said at a press conference connected to a live feed of the injection. ‘It’s the beginning of the last chapter of the book, but now we just have to do it.’

With that, Dr. Michelle Chester administered the shot to Lindsay, who said, ‘I feel great’ at the end of the quick process — the first in the country, according to Cuomo’s office.

‘It didn’t feel any different from taking any other vaccine,’ the nurse said.

‘We all need to do our part’ 

‘I feel hopeful today. Relieved,’ the critical case nurse said upon receiving the shot just on 9.30a.m.

‘I want to instill public confidence that the vaccine is safe,’ Lindsay added. ‘We’re in a pandemic and so we all need to do our part to put an end to the pandemic.’

In the first round of distributions, New York state was expecting to receive 170,000 doses of the vaccine made by Pfizer and German firm BioNTech, with 72,000 reserved for NYC. 

On Sunday, Pfizer began shipping doses of the drug throughout the country, kicking off the biggest vaccination effort in U.S. history.

Health care workers like Lindsay and nursing home residents and staff who continue to remain most susceptible in treating patients, will be prioritized for the vaccine.

Lindsay spent recent months on the front lines of the COVID outbreak, said Michael Dowling, CEO of Northwell Health, which runs Long Island Jewish Medical Center.

‘This is a special moment, a special day,’ Dowling said before the shot was administered. ‘This is what everybody has been waiting for.’

‘This is what heroes look like’

‘This is the light at the end of the tunnel. But it’s a long tunnel,’ Gov Cuomo said as he watched Lindsay’s vaccination via video.

Several other countries also have OK’d the vaccine, including the U.K., which started vaccinating last week.

The historic moment came as the city and the rest of the country were bracing for a grim winter in spite of the rollout of the vaccine.

The hurdle remains to get vaccine into the arms of millions, not just doctors and nurses but other at-risk health workers such as janitors and food handlers – and then deliver a second dose three weeks later AP reports.

A wary public will be watching closely to see whether health workers embrace vaccination. Just half of Americans say they want to get vaccinated, while about a quarter don’t and the rest are unsure, according to a recent poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Health Research.

The COVID infection rate has been on the rise, and the number of cases and deaths is expecting to spike as Americans travel for the holidays despite warnings from the authorities.

The virus had claimed over 306,000 American lives and killed 1.3 million others around the world as of Monday morning, according to data tracked by Johns Hopkins University.

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