NEW YORK: "Hopefully soon! I'm first on the list!", reads a text message from Dr. Krishan Kumar, an Indian American doctor on the frontlines of the pandemic response in New York City. Excitement and a sense of relief are palpable as the first COVID-19 shots go into the arms of healthcare workers and nursing home residents in the United States.
Kumar works in the emergency rooms of two hospitals, in Brooklyn and in Queens. His message landed just as the very first shot in the United States was delivered to a nurse in New York City, shortly before 9: 30 am on Monday. "I feel like healing is coming," said Sandra Lindsay, a critical care nurse who received the first vaccine in New York City, in Queens, in the full glare of news cameras. As these remarkable visuals play out, hospital workers across 50 states are unloading precious cargo: the first vials of nearly 3 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine which mark the shift towards real recovery from a virus that has killed nearly 300,000 Americans in just 11 months. (IANS)