Meet the doctors who got first COVID-19 vaccines in Bay Area
CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) -- After nine grueling months of COVID-19 hope has arrived. Medical workers from Contra Costa to San Francisco are breathing a sigh of relief as they got the first doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine.
"It literally gives me chills because medical science has never done anything like that. The human race has never done anything like this. To identify a novel virus, sequence it, produce a vaccine and test it and have it be safe," said Dr. Sergio Urcoyo, Department Chair of Hospital Medicine at Contra Costa Regional Medical Center.
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In Contra Costa County 9,750 doses arrived Tuesday. The plan is to distribute them between the eight medical facilities in the county.
"Getting the COVID-19 shot, that tells me that in 21 days I get the second shot and I will be more protected," said Nancy Hendra, Nursing Director for Infectious Disease Control at Contra Costa Regional Medical Center.
Also making history at Zuckerberg General Hospital, five medical workers were vaccinated Monday. Dr. Antonio Gomez was the first in line.
"I trust the FDA's evaluation process, I trust the experts we have here at this hospital who have seen the data, who have looked at it, and we all believe this is a safe vaccine. I wouldn't have administered it on myself if I didn't think it was safe," said Dr. Gomez, Medical Director of Critical Care at Zuckerberg General.
On Dr. Gomez's mind all the critically ill COVID-19 patients he's treated for nine months.
"We have suffered loss and we have seen patients who have had to go through this process alone and that is a very difficult thing to deal with," Dr. Gomez.
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San Francisco is expecting over 12,500 doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine this week.
San Francisco's Mayor Breed urging the public to not see this announcement as a reason to let our guard down.
"We won't be able to fully get the amount of doses to cover everyone until anywhere between next year in the spring even. We still have some time where we have to go through this process and ask people to be patient and wear their mask," Mayor Breed.
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