The largest hospitals in Massachusetts began receiving highly anticipated coronavirus vaccines on Monday, and more than 54,000 more doses are slated to arrive at another 17 hospitals statewide, the Baker Administration said Tuesday.
UMass Memorial Medical Center was among those receiving a total of 5,850 vaccines on Monday, with the first shots at the Worcester hospital expected to be given Wednesday. Southbridge-based Harrington HealthCare System said Tuesday it received its first shipment Tuesday and will begin providing doses to system staff as early as Wednesday.
State officials are expecting Massachusetts to receive 300,000 coronavirus vaccine doses before the end of the month. Little more than half are made by Pfizer, whose vaccine won U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval last Friday. The remainder will come from Cambridge-based Moderna, whose own approval is expected this week.
Over 60K COVID vaccines arriving at Mass hospitals wbjournal.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wbjournal.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
As U.S. Surpasses 300,000 COVID Deaths, Boston Hospital Workers Begin Receiving Vaccinations
Dr. Gabriela Andujar-Vazquez of Tufts New England Medical Center in Boston receives the very first COVID-19 vaccine given to the hospital s frontline workers on December 15, 2020.
Meredith Nierman / GBH News
Dr. Gabriela Andujar Vazquez was the first person at Tufts Medical Center to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The associate hospital epidemiologist, who regularly sees COVID-19 patients, didnât flinch at all as she was injected with the Pfizer vaccine Tuesday afternoon.
âIt s definitely a relief,â she said, adding that her concern wasnât about infection within the hospital. âBecause I firmly believe that PPE works and that it protects our health care workers. But more so to protect everyone outside the hospital, like my nieces, my nephews. And [I m] doing this for the community. Not only for us, but for everyone else.â
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Tufts healthcare workers including Gabriela Andujar Vazquez, associate hospital epidemiologist, received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday. (Shelby Lum/Globe Staff)
Even as Boston medical workers began receiving their long-awaited COVID-19 vaccines Tuesday, Governor Charlie Baker warned that a spike in coronavirus infections since Thanksgiving is straining the stateâs health care system and implored residents to forgo holiday gatherings.
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.