COVID In Philadelphia: Penn Medicine Administers First Pfizer Vaccine To ER Nurse Eric Young
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Penn Medicine has administered its first COVID-19 vaccination. Emergency department nurse Eric Young was the first Penn Medicine worker to get the Pfizer vaccine on Wednesday.
Young had just ended his night shift at Pennsylvania Hospital.
Penn Medicine said the first round of doses is being offered to frontline workers.
Some 3,000 doses will go to its Philadelphia hospitals.
Philadelphia's health commissioner explained how much of the vaccine is being delivered to the city this week.
"We are receiving this week from the Pfizer vaccine 13,650 doses. And next week, 27,600 doses of the Moderna vaccine, if it is approved," Dr. Thomas Farley said.
Farley touted the effectiveness of both the Pfizer vaccine and the Moderna vaccine and says it's the first step on the long road to ending this pandemic.
"In general, I consider vaccines to be the greatest discovery in medicine," he said. "And I'm very hopeful that this and other vaccines will ultimately end this pandemic just as vaccines have ended epidemics -- smallpox, and polio and measles."
Elsewhere, the first Delawarean received Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, according to Gov. John Carney and state health officials. Elisabeth Cote, a progressive care unit nurse at Bayhealth, received the vaccine Tuesday morning at Bayhealth's Kent campus in Dover.
Cote received the vaccine roughly 24 hours after the first shipment arrived at Bayhealth on Monday.
"After nine long months fighting COVID-19, this is a moment of hope for Delaware and for our country. There is a light at the end of the tunnel," Gov. Carney. "Delaware's nurses, doctors, nursing assistants, and non-medical staff have all demonstrated courage and leadership every day of this COVID-19 crisis. Now, nurses like Elisabeth Cote are leading by example again by stepping up to get the COVID-19 vaccine. It is because of them that we will beat this pandemic and come out stronger on the other side."
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