Nicholas Capote dispenses the first Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine doses at Tufts Medical Center from a vial into a syringe. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Health care workers administered the first COVID-19 vaccines in Massachusetts to their own on Tuesday. Doctors, nurses, cleaning staff and others stationed in COVID units, emergency rooms or other front-line positions received the injection after workers unpacked the frozen vaccine vials in a puff of cold mist.
The arrival of the vaccine, developed in record time by Pfizer and BioNTech, a German company with U.S. headquarters in Cambridge, has been met with jubilation from health experts. The beginning of these injections, they say, marks a big step toward ending the pandemic.