The largest vaccination campaign in U.S. history began Monday, with health workers rolling up their sleeves to protect themselves from COVID-19 and to launch an epidemic – a day of hope even as the nation’s death toll closes at 300,000.
“I feel confident today,” said Sandra Lindsay, a critical care nurse after being shot in the arm at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York.
Workers at Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State University gave the first injection of applause with the number “three, two, one.”
In New Orleans, Steven Lee, a pharmacist in the intensive care unit of the Ochsner Medical Center, summed up the moment he received his own vaccine: “We can finally prevent it by resisting treatment for the disease.”
Other hospitals across the country, from Rhode Island to Texas, unloaded precious frozen bottles made by Pfizer Inc. and its German partner Bioendech, with stumbled deliveries throughout Monday and Tuesday. The vaccine has been approved by several countries, including the United Kingdom, which began vaccinating people last week.
For health workers, the first priority for vaccination with nursing home residents is the sheer exhaustion of months of fighting hope and a corona virus that is still on the rise in the United States and around the world.
“This is the 24th mile of a marathon. People get tired. But we also acknowledge that this decision has come to the fore, ”said Dr. Chris Dale of Swedish Health Services in Seattle.
It is packed with dry ice to stay at extreme freezing temperatures, the first of nearly 3 million volumes The dispatch is to reduce the required amount. More and more Pfizer-Bioentech vaccines are coming in every week. Later this week, the FDA will decide whether to green light the world’s second most rigorously tested COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by Moderna Inc.
The United States believes two vaccines will be enough to vaccinate 20 million people by the end of this month, and the average person will not have enough to get a shot until spring.
“This is the light at the end of the tunnel. But it’s a long way off, ”said Andrew Cuomo, of the New York government.
Not only doctors and nurses, but millions of dangerous health workers, such as janitors and food handlers, are now barred from getting vaccinated quickly, and then a second dose should be given three weeks later.
Sue Mashney, chief pharmacist at Mount Sinai Health Systems in New York City, said: “We are in the midst of an uprising, and it is the holidays, and our health workers are working at an extraordinary pace.
In addition, the shots can cause temporary fever, fatigue and pain, which boost people’s immunity and force hospitals to prevent staff vaccinations.
The public will be meticulously alerted to the fact that health workers are accepting vaccines. Half of Americans say they want to be vaccinated, while a quarter do not, and the rest are not sure, according to a recent poll Associated Press-NRC Center for Public Health Research.
The FDA-Pfizer-Bioendech vaccine, developed less than a year after the FDA, the world’s toughest medical regulator, was identified, appears to be safe and strong, and it set the data for a daytime public meeting last week for scientists and consumers alike to see.
“Please, folks, when you look back in a year, ‘Did I do the right thing?’ “I hope you can say, ‘Yes, because I saw the evidence,'” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “People are dying now. How can you say ‘wait and see’? ”
However, in obtaining approval for widespread emergency use, the vaccine was eliminated in approximately 44,000 by the end of the final study. That research continues to seek to answer additional questions.
For example, while the vaccine is effective in preventing COVID-19 disease, it is not yet clear whether it will stop the asymptomatic spread that causes about half of all cases.
Be sure to read the footage in children and during pregnancy. But the U.S. College of Obstetrics and Gynecology said Sunday that the vaccine should not be discontinued from eligible pregnant women otherwise.
Also, regulators in the UK are investigating some severe allergic reactions. The FDA’s instructions state that suppliers should not give to anyone with a history of severe allergic reactions to any of its products.
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AP journalists Marion Renault, Andrew Welsh-Hawkins, Tamara Lush and Kathy Young contributed to the report.
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The Associated Press Department of Health and Science is supported by the Department of Science Education at Howard Hughes Medical Institute. AP is solely responsible for all content.