A NAN First
By News Americas Staff Writer
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Tues. Dec. 15, 2020: It was definitely an all-Caribbean American affair when it came to the US’ first COVID-19 vaccine administered on Monday, Dec. 14, 2020.
Not only were the first two health care workers who took the shot Caribbean Americans, but the doctor who administered the shot is also from a CARICOM country.
Dr. Michelle Chester, the corporate director Employee Health Services at Northwell Health, was born in capital of the South American CARICOM nation of Guyana, News Americas has learnt. After migrating to the US, she attended Far Rockaway High School and then Rutgers University.
“We all should give this vaccine a chance to propel us into the new beginning of ending Covid-19,” Dr. Chester said after administering the first the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in the Queens,New York on Monday to Jamaican-born Sandra Lindsay, a critical care nurse and Haitian American doctor Yves Duroseau, the chair of emergency medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan.
“She has a good touch, and it didn’t feel any different than taking any other vaccine,” Lindsay said immediately after getting the vaccine from Dr. Chester.
Jamaican-born nurse Lindsay, became one of the most famous nurses in the United States after she became the first person in the country vaccinated for the coronavirus.
The 52-year-old immigrated to the US 30 years ago and, she went to community college and then to Lehman College in the Bronx for her nursing degree.
She went to work at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan and rose through the ranks until she became the director of critical care nursing at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, part of the Northwell Health network, in 2016.
Next up in the chair was another Caribbean American, Haitian roots Dr. Yves Duroseau, the chair of emergency medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan.
As a frontline emergency medicine physician, he is at high risk and said he wanted the staff of doctors, nurses and other health care workers that he oversees to follow his example.
Dr. Duroseau said he is also eager to send a message, especially to Black people, that vaccination is safe.
“I think we need to fear the Covid-19 virus more than we need to fear the vaccine,” said Dr. Duroseau.
Northwell Health is New York State’s largest health care provider and private employer, with 23 hospitals, nearly 800 outpatient facilities and more than 14,200 affiliated physicians. They care for over two million people annually in the New York metro area and beyond and has 74,000 employees – 18,500 nurses and 4,500 employed doctors, including members of Northwell Health Physician Partners.
