US Health Care Workers Start to Receive COVID-19 Vaccine Shots
Brian Mendez, MD at the Memorial Healthcare System, receives a Pfizer-BioNtech Covid-19 vaccine from Colleen Claffey, RN at Memorial Healthcare System, on December 14, 2020 in Miramar, Florida. . The hospital system announced it will be vaccinating their frontline workers that are in contact with COVID-19 patients. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Health care workers in the country are starting to receive COVID-19 shots on Monday with hopes that an all-out vaccination effort will curb the further spread of the coronavirus.

The United States has already reached around 300,000 deaths due to pandemic.

Proclaimed critical care nurse Sandra Lindsay said that she was relieved after being the first to be vaccinated at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York, as reported by the Associated Press. Lindsay added that she feels like healing is coming.

In Ohio, the state has already started giving initial injections to workers at Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis personally open the delivery door to the FedEx driver and signed for a package containing 975 frozen doses of vaccine manufactured by Pfizer Inc. and its partner German firm BioNTech.

The shots started to be the most extensive vaccination effort in the history of the United States. Hopefully, one that could fight the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Valerie Briones-Pryor said that she wants to get back to see her family. Briones-Pryor has been working in a COVID-19 unit at the University of Louisville Hospital since March.

The doctor has since lost her 27th patient due to the virus. She was also one of the first recipients of the COVID-19 vaccine.

States Receiving COVID-19 Vaccine Shipments

Around 145 sites around the country have already received shipments of the COVID-19 vaccine. It includes Rhode Island to Alaska. More deliveries are expected to come.

John Couris, president and chief executive of Tampa General Hospital, described the first delivery of the 20,000 doses as doses of hope. Nursing home residents are also a priority in giving the COVID-19 doses.

Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Bedford, Massachusetts announced through Twitter that it gave its first dose to a 96-year-old World War II veteran, Margaret Klassens.

Other nursing homes in the country are expected to be vaccinated too in the coming days. A John Hopkin University tally said that the campaign began the same day the U.S. death toll crossed the 300,000 counts.

According to an AP report, it was more than five times the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War. It is also equal to a 9/11 attack every day for over 100 days.

"To think, now we can just absorb in our country 3,000 deaths a day as though it were just business as usual. It just represents a moral failing," Jennifer Nuzzo, a public health researcher at Johns Hopkins, said in a report.

Health experts noted that the cautious public observes the vaccination efforts, particularly in communities of color that have been widely affected by the pandemic.

Dr. Leonardo Seoane, the chief academic officer at Ochsner Health in suburban New Orleans, said that getting vaccinated is a privilege.

Seoane, who is a Cuban American, also got his first dose of the vaccine. Seoane then urged all Hispanics to do it, assuring that it is okay.