NEW YORK, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- A critical care nurse in New York City was injected with a dose of COVID-19 vaccine on Monday morning, marking the start of inoculation in New York state.
Sandra Lindsay from Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens received the vaccine, which was live streamed and closely followed by New Yorkers.
"It didn't feel any different from taking any other vaccine. I feel hopeful today, relieved," said Lindsay.
Lindsay expressed the hope that this marks the beginning of the end of a very painful time in U.S. history and the inoculation will instill public confidence that the vaccine is safe.
"This is the light at the end of the tunnel, but it's a long tunnel," said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo during the live streamed vaccination.
New York state would receive around 170,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine within the first week of distribution as the United States on Sunday started shipment of the first batch of 2.9 million doses of vaccines to distribution centers across the United States.
U.S. federal regulator Food and Drug Administration Friday nodded the emergency use of the COVID-19 vaccine jointly developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.