When Mark Hooks volunteered to become the first man in Illinois to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, he already had educated himself about the shot and was fully prepared for the most common side effects: Low-grade fever. Body aches. Chills. Headaches.
Those symptoms, however, never materialized. He completed his shifts at work all week without a problem, even the one he briefly interrupted to take the shot on live television as part of an inaugural vaccination event organized by City Hall.
âIâve been feeling great. I havenât had any symptoms whatsoever other than some mild soreness around the injection site,â said Hooks, an emergency department nurse at Loretto Hospital. âBut thatâs to be expected anytime your boss puts a needle in one of your muscles.â
First Chicago vaccine recipients report feeling great after historic shots chicagotribune.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from chicagotribune.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Crusader Staff Report
Pfizer’s vaccinations in Chicago continue to go out after the first dose in the city was given at Loretto Hospital on the West Side.
The hospital was chosen because of the care it has provided communities hardest hit by the virus.
Five health care workers from three different hospitals were inoculated. Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said five people were getting inoculated at the same time because each vial contains five vaccine doses.
“There is nothing more I wanted for Christmas than a vaccine that looks like this,” said Dr. Arwady.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday, December 14, tweeted photos of the vaccines’ arrival in the city. Those doses were distributed to Chicago’s 34 hospitals, including Loretto in the Austin neighborhood, where the COVID-19 death rate is more than 60 percent higher than the citywide average.
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Homeless Shelters Grapple With COVID Safety as Cold Creeps In
“The reality is we’ve got to make it happen. We’ve got to have space for folks because it’s a matter of life and death.
CHICAGO Ben Barnes has slept in abandoned buildings, hallways and alleys. For the past year or so, he’s been staying at the city’s largest homeless shelter, Pacific Garden Mission, in the shadows of the famous skyline.
Jamie Munks, Stacy St. Clair, Dan Petrella, Lisa Schencker and Gregory Pratt
Chicago Tribune
As the first COVID-19 vaccine administered in Illinois was plunged into Dr. Marina Del Riosâ left arm Tuesday, she thought about all the people who didnât live to see the historic day.
Her former patients. The health care workers who treated the virus and lost their lives because of it. The friend who died in the early days of the pandemic.
âI canât give you a total number of the people I know who have died or lost loved ones. Iâve stopped counting,â said Del Rios, the social emergency medicine director at the University of Illinois Hospital. âYou never want any lives to be lost, but so many at the same time weighs even heavier on you.â