Museums putting COVID vaccine artifacts on display Modern Healthcare IMAGE COURTESY OF THE EAST TENNESSEE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, KNOXVILLE Dr. Mark Rasnake (center), an infectious-disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at the University of Tennessee Medical Center, accompanied by Jenn Radtke, manager of infection prevention at UT Medical Center, delivers the first COVID-19 vaccine administered in Knox County to Warren Dockter, CEO of the East Tennessee Historical Society. The past year has felt like an eternity, so maybe it is fitting that history museums are beginning to enshrine artifacts from the battle against the novel coronavirus. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History acquired the vial that contained the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine administered in the U.S. as part of its plans to document the global pandemic and “this extraordinary period we were going through.”