The first COVID-19 vaccine approved for use in the United States was administered to a front-line worker in Queens, New York, on Monday morning.
The vaccine, which was produced by Pfizer and BioNTech, was shipped across the country over the weekend after the Food and Drug Administration granted an emergency use authorization for the vaccine on Friday. The Pfizer vaccine is the fastest vaccine ever to be produced and administered in the U.S.
Sandra Lindsey, an ICU nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, was one of the first in the nation to receive the vaccine.
“They will begin moving vaccine from the Pfizer manufacturing facility to the UPS and FedEx hubs, and then it will go out to the 636 locations nationwide, which were identified by the states and territories,” Gen. Gustave Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, said at a news conference Saturday. “We expect 145 sites across all the states to receive vaccine on Monday, another 425 sites on Tuesday, and the final 66 sites on Wednesday, which will complete the initial delivery of the Pfizer orders for vaccine.”
“I’m feeling well. I would like to thank all the front-line workers, all my colleagues who have been doing yeoman’s job despite this pandemic, all over the world,” Lindsey said after receiving the vaccine. “I’m hopeful, I feel hopeful today, relieved. I feel like healing is coming. I hope this marks the beginning of the end of a painful time in our history. I want to instill public confidence that the vaccine is safe. We’re in a pandemic, and so we all need to do our part to put an end to the pandemic and to not give up so soon.”
The U.S. has reported more than 16 million cases of the COVID-19 since the pandemic began, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, and the country is on the verge of surpassing 300,000 COVID-19 related deaths. The U.S., like many countries across the globe, is in the middle of the worst surge in cases yet, with fears that holiday travel from Thanksgiving and upcoming winter festivities will only compound an already worsening situation.
The United Kingdom was the first Western country to begin providing a coronavirus vaccine to citizens.
It took the U.S. four months to pass 100,000 COVID-19 deaths, from February to late May, according to the New York Times, and a similar amount of time elapsed before the country notched 200,000 deaths in September. The current surge in cases, however, means that the U.S. will likely pass 300,000 deaths in fewer than three months.
