Throughout 2022, we’ll bring you stories that speak to the current state of the healthcare workforce and the urgent need to protect and support nurses; design safe, healthy work environments and cultures that attract, value, empower, add diversity to, and advance nurses.  We’ll point you to experts, innovators, catalysts, artists, tools, resources, and more to increase well-being, mental fitness, clinical excellence, and joy in the work of improving health and saving lives.

The delivery of commercial COVID-19 vaccines in less than a year is nothing short of miraculous and was made possible by Operation Warp Speed—a historic public-private partnership initiated and coordinated by the United States government. While other medical moonshots and breakthroughs have been achieved, few have occurred with the speed and success of developing the COVID-19 vaccines.

December 14, 2020—just seven months after announcing Operation Warp Speed—was the first day the COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the US and those on the frontlines of health care were among the first in this historic and unprecedented mass vaccination effort to receive them.

Along with her colleagues from Northwell Health's Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens New York, critical care nurse Sandra Lindsay unhesitatingly and voluntarily rolled up her sleeve and got her COVID-19 shot in the company of dozens of her colleagues, hospital leadership—and cameras—not realizing or planning she'd become the first person in the US to receive it. Within minutes, the now-iconic images and video footage of her receiving a COVID-19 jab administered by fellow nurse Michelle Chester, DNP began circulating in media outlets around the globe and along with it a high-profile opportunity to reach others, inspire them, and build their vaccine confidence.

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Guest(s) Featured in this Episode

• Sandra Lindsay, DHSc, MS, MBA, RN, CCRN-K, NE-BC

Episode Resources

• Explaining Operation Warp Speed Fact Sheet
• What Healthcare Can Learn From Operation Warp Speed
• ‘I Trust Science,’ Says Nurse Who Is First to Get Vaccine in US
• From the Factory to the Frontlines
• The beginning of the end for COVID: Northwell’s Director of Employee Health Services, Michelle Chester, DNP, discusses the COVID-19 vaccine's significance in ending the pandemic
• First Covid shot recipient in US is now a vaccine activist
• Sandra Lindsay Honored by President Biden at White House Ceremony
• Sandra Lindsay got the first US COVID jab. Here's her secret to motivate others
• Smithsonian Obtains Vial from First US COVID-19 Vaccine Dose