New York City’s first vaccinated nurse is now among the first people to be fully vaccinated for Covid-19 in the United States.
Sandra Lindsay is a critical care nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, and on Monday, she became the first person in the country to be fully vaccinated for coronavirus. Lindsay has cared for Covid-19 patients for over 10 months, making her vaccination a priority as a health official.
Lindsay received the first part of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, a two-part vaccine that must be administered 21 days apart. The two-dose regimen has an efficacy of 95 percent.
After the second vaccination, Lindsay said this is a great step toward curbing the virus’s spread. “So I feel like I’ve completed kind of the marathon. I’ve closed the loop. I know that we’re not out of the woods yet. We don’t have that herd immunity yet, but the burden feels definitely much lighter today. And I am very, very grateful,” said Lindsay.
“So I just want to tell people that if you’re not informed, get informed. Speak to experts. Speak to health care professionals. Don’t listen to hearsay and let us all do our parts. It’s our civil responsibility. COVID-19 has stripped us of our lives, our livelihoods, and 2021 is our opportunity to reclaim that,” she continued.
When Lindsay received her first Pfizer vaccination, she said she felt “great.” “I have no fear,” she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “I trust the science. My profession is deeply rooted in science. I trust science. What I don’t trust is getting Covid-19, because I don’t know how it will affect me and the people around me that I could potentially transfer the virus to.”
