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Nurses, doctors celebrate Covid shots

Coronavirus Daily
Bloomberg

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Nurses, doctors celebrate Covid shots

Nurses sporting stickers and dancing doctors are the face of the Covid-19 vaccine rollout in the U.S.

Health-care workers across the country are taking to social media to show they received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, with many using the hashtag #IGotTheShot. They are among the first to receive the vaccine outside of clinical trials after it was authorized for emergency use by regulators. Another shot from Moderna began rolling out this week.

Methodist Healthcare in Memphis, Tennessee, posted a video on Twitter of workers in scrubs dancing to the song "My Shot," from the Broadway musical "Hamilton." In New York City, Lenox Hill Hospital's neurosurgery department created a TikTok of employees getting vaccinated set to the song "Shots" by LMFAO featuring Lil Jon.

The goal: Inspiring confidence in vaccines that some Americans worry may have been hurried into production at a time when online conspiracy theories are swirling, incorrectly claiming that the shots will alter people's DNA or come embedded with microchips, among other falsehoods.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, receives the Moderna Inc. Covid-19 vaccine.

Photographer: Patrick Semansky/Associated Press

Various polls have shown different results for how many Americans are willing to get one of the vaccines. However, a survey conducted by Gallup in late November, after the initial safety results were released on the Pfizer vaccine, found that about two-thirds of Americans said they were willing to get immunized.

Minal Ahson, a doctor who has treated Covid-19 patients at Tampa General Hospital since March, was one of the skeptics. But trusted colleagues who told her how the vaccine's messenger RNA technology was years in development before it was used against Covid-19.

In the end, she decided to trust the science and got her first Pfizer shot last Tuesday. The second will come 21 days later. She said it felt "historic."

If someone knows "I've gotten it and I'm doing OK, maybe one more person will be more likely to get vaccinated or share my story with a family member who's hesitant," she said. 

Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government's top infectious-disease doctor, received Moderna's vaccine Tuesday in an event broadcast online from the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. He was joined by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and NIH Director Francis Collins, along with six front-line health care workers. "What we're seeing now is the culmination of years of research," Fauci said.

Krutika Kuppalli, an infectious disease doctor at the Medical University of South Carolina, posted updates on Twitter about how she was feeling after she got her shot. On day one, her arm felt sore, which she explained as a good feeling because it signaled the vaccine was working. Overall, she said, she felt great. On the second day, she felt great again, and said the soreness in her neck from staring at her computer screen hurt more than the slight tenderness in her arm.

"I'm really hopeful if we are transparent with the public and our patients about why we're getting it and any side effects we have," Kuppalli said. "It will make the public and patients more confident in the vaccine, and they will want to get it."—Angelica LaVito

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Lessons From Past Vaccines

The vaccination effort will have plenty of challenges, including convincing people to get the shot. It's not the first time the country has rolled out this kind of public health initiative. John Lauerman spoke with infectious-disease specialist William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University to learn more. Get the episode here.

 

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