An intensive care unit (ICU) nurse became the first person in the United States to receive the newly authorised Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine yesterday, calling it a sign that “healing is coming” as the US coronavirus death toll approaches 300,000.
The Covid-19 respiratory disease is caused by the coronavirus.
Sandra Lindsay, who has treated some of the sickest Covid-19 patients for months, was given the vaccine at Long Island Jewish Medical Centre in the New York City borough of Queens, an early epicentre of the country’s Covid-19 outbreak, receiving applause on a livestream with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
“It didn’t feel any different from taking any other vaccine,” Lindsay said. “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. I want to instill public confidence that the vaccine is safe.”
Cuomo tweeted a picture of Lindsay, wearing a mask and staring resolutely ahead, as a doctor injected her in the arm, and said she was the first American to get vaccinated.
“This is what heroes look like,” he wrote.
Minutes after Lindsay received the injection, President Donald Trump sent a tweet: “First Vaccine Administered. Congratulations USA! Congratulations WORLD!”
Northwell Health, New York state’s largest health system, operates some of the select hospitals in the United States that were administering the country’s first inoculations of the Covid-19 vaccine outside of clinical trials yesterday.
The vaccine, developed by Pfizer Incorporated and German partner BioNTech SE, won an emergency use authorisation from federal regulators on Friday after it was found to be 95% effective in preventing illness in a large clinical trial.
The first 2.9mn doses began to be shipped to distribution centres around the country on Sunday, just 11 months after the United States documented its first case of Covid-19.
As of yesterday, the United States had registered more than 16mn Covid-19 cases and was fast closing in on the grim milestone of 300,000 deaths from the virus.
Healthcare workers and elderly residents of long-term care homes will be first in line to get the inoculations of a two-dose regimen given three weeks apart.
Next will be essential workers, as determined by the US states, and elderly people with underlying health conditions.
Canada kicked off its inoculation campaign against Covid-19 yesterday by injecting frontline healthcare workers, becoming just the third nation in the world to administer the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
The first dose went to Anita Quidangen, a personal support worker at the Rekai Centre, a non-profit nursing home for the elderly in Toronto, Canada’s largest city.
Healthcare workers in masks and white coats applauded after she was injected.
“Today really we turn a corner,” Dr Kevin Smith, president and chief executive officer of the University Health Network, which runs the care home, said after the shot was administered. “I like to say that this is the shot that will be heard around the world.”
More than 60% of Canada’s 13,350 pandemic deaths overall have been in residences for the elderly, down from 80% in the first wave.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the first recipients will be workers in hospitals and nursing homes, the most vulnerable segment of the elderly, as well as those living on remote aboriginal reserves.
In the United Kingdom, London is to move into the highest level of coronavirus restrictions due to concern about spiralling numbers of infections, the health minister announced yesterday.
The British capital’s move into “Tier 3” from 0001 GMT tomorrow means theatres as well as nightspots, restaurants and other hospitality venues will have to close, except for takeaway food.
People are not supposed to socialise with anyone not from their household, but they can meet in groups of up to six in public places outside.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said London had seen a “sharp rise” in daily cases and hospital admissions, and there was public health concern about a new strain of the coronavirus.
“This action is absolutely essential, not just to keep people safe but because we have seen early action can prevent more damage and longer-term problems later,” he told parliament.
In some areas, cases are doubling every seven days, he said, warning: “It only takes a few doublings for the NHS (National Health Service) to be overwhelmed.”
Currently London is in “Tier 2”, which means non-essential shops and services can open, but it currently has one of the highest infection rates in the country.
In Russia, developers published fresh trial results for their Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine yesterday based on new data, and said the shot had again been found to be 91.4% effective in providing protection from Covid-19.
More than 200,000 people have already been vaccinated against the disease as part of Russia’s mass inoculation programme, which began in September alongside a Moscow-based human trial of the shot.
The new results are based on data from 22,714 participants in the trial, and were published after 78 confirmed coronavirus cases were reported among the group, researchers at the Gamaleya Institute said in a statement yesterday with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which is marketing the shot abroad.
Of the 78 cases, 62 occurred among participants who received a placebo, the researchers said, while in the trial overall the ratio of those who received the placebo to those vaccinated was 1 to 3.
Twenty of the infected participants who received a placebo suffered severe symptoms of Covid-19, the statement said.
There were no severe cases among the 16 vaccinated trial participants, the statement said.
Analysis of the new data found Sputnik V, named after the Soviet satellite that triggered the space race, to have a 91.4% efficacy rate, the statement said.