COVID In Philadelphia: Health Care Workers To Begin Receiving Pfizer's Vaccine Today
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Health care workers in Philadelphia will begin receiving Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday. Jefferson Health will start vaccinating staff Wednesday morning after receiving its first vaccines.
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."
Most Philadelphia hospitals will also begin issuing the vaccine on Wednesday.
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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