Almost three weeks after he became the first person in Rhode Island to receive an authorized COVID vaccine shot, emergency physician Dr. Christian Arbelaez on Saturday received his second dose.
Some things had changed in the meantime. Eight thousand of his colleagues, about half of Lifespan’s workforce, had received their first vaccine dose of the two-dose regimen. That includes colleagues of Arbelaez who decided to sign up because his experience — broadcast live on national cable news — motivated them. The vaccine was now rolling out in the community, in hard-hit and heavily Latino Central Falls. And on New Year’s Eve, just before the calendar flipped to 2021, Arbelaez turned 47.
Some things had stayed the same: COVID-19 had continued to kill people, including one of Arbelaez's uncles in Colombia. It continued to sicken others, including family members in Colombia and in Texas. And the disease continued to put pressure on Arbelaez’s workplace, Rhode Island Hospital, which had experienced a post-Thanksgiving wave of patients and was bracing for the possibility of a post-Christmas and New Year's wave.
“It’s this perfect storm — can we take care of everyone?” Arbelaez said. “Do we have capacity? Do we have front-line workers well enough? Those are all the things that worry me.”
Arbelaez received his second dose at Rhode Island Hospital’s Gerry House, without the fanfare of the first historic moment. Instead, Lifespan employees were shuffling in for a run-of-the-mill vaccine clinic on a dreary holiday weekend.
Nurses and pharmacists at tables around the room asked the recipients, sitting in chairs next to them, whether they’d ever had allergic reactions to an injectable drug and whether they'd had COVID-19 antibody treatments. They swabbed their patients’ upper arms — the deltoid muscle, to be precise — with disinfectant pads before jabbing them and pressing the plunger.
“Thank you,” Arbelaez told Jessica Dye, the travel nurse from Florida who gave him his shot Saturday. “Jessica, Happy New Year to you.”
Arbelaez hardly flinched while he was getting his second shot. Afterward, he went into a back room for monitoring. He had received the Pfizer vaccine, which requires a second dose about three weeks later. Another vaccine, developed by Moderna, has also been authorized, and that also needs a second dose.
Dye wiped down his chair with a disinfectant and waited for her next patient once Arbelaez left.
“To be a part of this, to make a change in the world — I love it, and I love what I do,” Dye said.
Some patients were nervous, Dye said. They were also "thrilled.”
“Some people ask me about it — I think it’s a good thing,” said Dye, who was planning to get the vaccine herself.
Fifteen minutes later, Arbelaez emerged from the monitoring room, feeling fine. No side effects at all; he’d had a bit of a sore arm after his first shot but that was it. Mindful of the fact that side effects — like fever, chills or a headache — seem to occur more often after the second dose, Arbelaez said he’d be monitoring himself for a few days. But he was not overly concerned.
Still, even though he’s now fully vaccinated, he’ll be careful. The world is still learning about what immunity looks like. A new variant of the virus that first emerged in the United Kingdom has also been identified in the United States. Experts doubt it will fully escape the effects of the vaccines that have been released so far, but it is also much more contagious.
All the while, thousands of people around the U.S. are dying every day, at levels we’d never tolerate under other circumstances, Arbelaez said. People will need to take the vaccine in high enough numbers to end the pandemic.
“This is a historic moment for public health,” Arbelaez said. “This is how we’re going to get out of it.”
His family is happy for him, although a few of his friends did tease him about his media exposure after he bared his arm on newspaper front pages: “Dude,” they’d ask. “Were you flexing?” (He was not.)
Lifespan spokeswoman Kathleen Hart said the health system, which includes Rhode Island Hospital, Miriam Hospital and Newport Hospital, was now moving into starting vaccines for its moderate-risk workers. The very first recipients in mid-December, like Arbelaez, started getting their second doses on Saturday.
All told, 20,578 people had received their first shots to date, Department of Health spokesman Joseph Wendelken said Saturday morning. The state started with high-risk medical workers, then rolled out the vaccine to other vulnerable populations, like staff and inmates at the Adult Correctional Institutions, nursing homes and the residents of Central Falls.
Marianne Ryan, an emergency room nurse at Rhode Island Hospital, was among the very first wave. She got her second dose Saturday. Bright and early for Ryan, 7 a.m.
Ryan said many of her colleagues are getting the shot because they see first-hand what it can do to people.
“We see the worst cases in the ER,” said Ryan, 70. “People can get very sick.”
As after her first shot, she had some apprehensions about her second. But she hadn’t experienced any side effects. She went to Seven Stars Bakery and had a muffin in her car, then went to Stop & Shop.
Even after she’s fully vaccinated, she’ll take precautions, such as wearing a mask. And there are still some unknowns: Will her relatives be able to get vaccinated, too? Will this become seasonal, and require a shot every year?
In the year ahead, she’s looking forward to doing things she wasn’t able to do in the last year. A pub crawl in Ireland (she likes beer). If it opens in the fall, Gillette Stadium (she loves the Patriots).
“I’m excited about that,” Ryan said. “I’m being cautious, but optimistic.”
— bamaral@providencejournal.com
(401) 277-7615
On Twitter: @bamaral44
The Link LonkJanuary 03, 2021 at 02:33AM
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First RI doc to get COVID shot gets booster - The Providence Journal
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