Long Island Jewish Medical Center was a site of one of the first injections of the coronavirus vaccine in the United States on Monday.
Sandra Lindsay, an intensive-care unit nurse at the hospital in Queens, N.Y., was given Pfizer’s vaccine during a live video event of the historic occasion. Michelle Chester, the corporate director of employee health services at Northwell Health, administered the shot.
“She has a good touch, and it didn’t feel any different than taking any other vaccine,” said Lindsay after getting the vaccine for a pandemic that has killed more than 300,000 people in the United States and more than 1.6 million worldwide since the first case was detected in Wuhan, China, in December 2019.
The Pfizer vaccine, which received authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday, came after less than a year of research and development. Moderna’s vaccine is expected to receive approval from the FDA by the end of the week.
“I’m feeling well,” said Lindsay. “I would like to thank all the frontline workers, all my colleagues who have been doing a yeoman’s job to fight this pandemic all over the world. I feel hopeful today, relieved. I feel like healing is coming. I hope this marks the beginning of the end of a very painful time in our history.”
Currently, health-care workers and nursing-home residents will be getting the vaccine since they are at a higher risk of contracting the virus than any other age or occupational group.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are expected to be distributed on a large scale by next spring. Each vaccination requires two doses.
