On Monday, with a swift prick on a nurse's left deltoid at New York in the United States of America, the world entered its final frontier in the fight against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the raging pandemic outbreak that had held 2020 by storm.
An apparently excited Donald Trump, the outgoing US President, also took to his personal account on Twitter to share the update.
"First Vaccine Administered. Congratulations USA! Congratulations WORLD!" he tweeted.
The first COVID-19 vaccine outside of a clinical trial was administered to Sandra Lindsay, a critical care nurse at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center at Queens in New York, on this day. As she became the first American to receive the vaccine, excitement and a sense of relief were palpable all around.
“Sandra, you didn’t flinch,” The Washington Post quoted New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo (D) as saying, as he watched via live stream from his office the injection being administered.
"I feel like healing is coming," said Lindsay, in the full glare of news cameras.
The first COVID-19 shots went into the arms of healthcare workers and nursing home residents in the United States, as promised.
After she got the shot and it was sealed with a bandaid, Lindsay urged Americans to mask up, stay the course and get vaccinated when their time comes.
As these remarkable visuals play out, hospital workers across 50 states are unloading precious cargo: the first vials of nearly 3 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's Covid-19 vaccine which mark the shift towards real recovery from a virus that has killed nearly 300,000 Americans in just 11 months.
The Pfizer vaccine is being transported from Pfizer's Kalamazoo, Michigan, factory in massive trucks with dry ice packaging that allows it to stay at ultra-frozen temperatures. The shots are yet to be studied in children and in pregnant women.
On the night of December 11, US regulators approved emergency use of the Pfizer and BionTech vaccine for people aged 16 years and older, based on recommendations from an independent vaccine advisory committee which debated for over nine hours before ending on a 17-4 vote.
The coronavirus disease pandemic has, by now, infected more than 72.4 million individuals across the world and claimed the lives of over 1.61 million.
