Lenox Hill Hospital Chair of Emergency Medicine Yves Duroseau receives the COVID-19 vaccine at Long Island Jewish Medical Center.Scott Heins/Getty Images
- The United States administered the first US doses of the COVID-19 vaccine on Monday.
- The first batch of vaccines were administered to healthcare workers in Queens, New York.
- Sandra Lindsay, a critical care nurse, was the first American to get the vaccine.
- Here are photos of the first Americans to be vaccinated against the deadly coronavirus.
The first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine available to US patients were administered at some hospitals Monday morning.
On Friday, the FDA approved a highly effective COVID-19 vaccine developed by the drugmakers Pfizer and BioNTech.
Trucks carrying the vaccine were seen leaving Pfizer's Michigan manufacturing center on Sunday.
Less than 24 hours later some of the highest priority Americans, including health care workers in New York, were on the receiving end of the needle.
The first batch was distributed at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center, in Queens, New York.
Sandra Lindsay, an intensive care nurse was the first American to be inoculated.
It will take months to vaccinate every American who wants it.
More than 16 million Americans have been infected by the novel coronavirus since it first arrived in the US last winter, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said the vaccine is imperative to bringing the pandemic to the end but won't stop the ongoing surge of cases in the US and is not an excuse to end other measures meant to reduce the spread of the disease.
Here are photos of what it looks like to get the coronavirus vaccine in the US.