New York nurse is first in US to be fully vaccinated after receiving second shot

New York nurse Sandra Lindsay on Monday became the first person in the United States to be fully vaccinated against coronavirus. 

Ms Lindsay received her second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, where she is the director of critical care nursing. 

“My message is still that of hope. You know the initial study was done using two doses of the vaccine. So, I feel like I have completed a kind of a marathon and closed the loop,” she said, after receiving both jabs, administered 21 days apart. 

“I know that we are not out of the woods yet. We don’t have that herd immunity yet but the burden feels definitely much lighter to me today,” Ms Lindsay said, adding that she would like to use her experience to clarify vaccine-related misconceptions. 

“I am very very grateful to you know, just receive this vaccine in the first place. Having this opportunity and also having the opportunity to be on my multiple platforms and letting people know that the vaccine is safe while also not dismissing people’s hesitancy and fears, but to use the opportunity to educate them, share my experiences and just clarifying misconceptions that people may have." 

Ms Lindsay, 52, said she was not trying to make history when she volunteered to receive the first round of the vaccination in December.  It was the scepticism surrounding the vaccine, even among her own staff, that meant she had decided to lead by example, all the more so as a black woman aware of racial discrepancies in medical treatment. 

In an interview with The New York Times last month, Ms Lindsay said that the goal was "not to be the first one to take the vaccine, but to inspire people who look like me, who are sceptical in general about taking vaccines.”