HAITIAN-AMERICAN DOCTOR FIRST PHYSICIAN TO RECEIVE COVID-19 VACCINE

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Coronavirus – December 16, 2020

TrueNewsBlog-TNB

From the Guardian and New York Times

Dr. Yves Duroseau spent this morning reflecting on the trying year he, his colleagues, and his city have been through. The head of emergency medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, Duroseau has spent months caring for the desperately ill, worried for his own safety and that of his colleagues.

He is the first doctor – and the second healthcare worker – in the US to receive a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, three days after the Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization of the Pfizer BioTech drug, according to Northwell Health.

Duroseau, the chair of emergency medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, also hoped to be a role model. As a frontline emergency medicine physician, he is at high risk. He wanted the staff of doctors, nurses and other health care workers that he oversees to follow his example, he said.

Duroseau, who is American of Haitian descent, said he was eager to send a message that vaccination is safe, according to The New York Times.

“I think we need to fear the Covid-19 virus more than we need to fear the vaccine,” said Dr. Duroseau.

Frontline healthcare workers and elderly nursing home residents have been given priority as the US rolls out the vaccine. Healthcare workers across the country – including in California, Texas and Florida – received their first doses of a two-dose inoculation today.

For many, the vaccine comes only after losing colleagues. According to Lost on the Frontline, a partnership between the Guardian and Kaiser Health News, nearly 1,500 US healthcare workers appear to have died after working on the frontlines of the pandemic. Continue reading