Suzanne Buck, a registered nurse at Upstate University Hospital, was the third person in Syracuse to receive the Covid-19 vaccine on Tuesday.
Buck was vaccinated at Upstate, the first hospital in the region to get shipments of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNtech. Upstate is one of 150 sites worldwide that participated in the clinical trials for the vaccine.
“It was amazing; I didn’t feel it,” said Buck, 54. “My arm is fine. And a lot of people I work with are so excited to get this vaccine.”
Buck said her team is seeing many more patients at Upstate than they did in the spring. She said she spent last night doing triage in the adult ER.
“We have so many people coming into the ER who are positive,” Buck said. “It’s so busy.”
Central New York hospitals are currently 75% full, based on a seven-day average, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office. Cuomo said the state is heading for another shutdown if things don’t change. He has warned repeatedly in recent weeks of the dangers of overwhelming the hospital system.
Buck has seen the ‘worst of the pandemic’ in her day-to-day work. She was one of the 22 nurses from Upstate who volunteered to help fight a Covid-19 outbreak on Long Island at SUNY Stony Brook in April.
“The deaths were unbelievable,” Buck said. She worked there for 16 days.
Buck has also worked shifts at the New York State Fairgrounds to do swab testing because “they’re just inundated with people who want to get tested for Covid.”
“If everyone wants to go back to a normal life, I think it’s so important that everyone get this vaccine,” she said.
Suzanne Buck was one of the 22 nurses from Upstate who volunteered to help fight a Covid-19 outbreak on Long Island at SUNY Stony Brook in April. She received the vaccine on Dec. 15, 2020.Katrina Tulloch
The first person in Syracuse to receive the vaccine was Kenzo B. Mukendi, 48, an immigrant who cleans patient rooms in Upstate’s Covid unit.
Dr. Stephen Thomas, chief of infectious disease at Upstate, said the vaccine’s arrival is bringing relief to hospital staffers scrambling to care for a growing wave of coronavirus patients. Thomas oversees a clinical trial of the vaccine that began at Upstate in the summer. He’s also the lead principal investigator worldwide for the trial.
“This is a very incredible day,” Thomas said. “There’s a little bit of relief here. A while ago, I was saying this is the light at the end of the tunnel, and it really looked like a train to be honest with you. But now, we might be able to get out of this thing.”
In addition to hospital workers, nursing home residents and staff are a top priority in the vaccine rollout. There are about 4,000 nursing home residents and 5,000 employees in the five-county Central New York region, according to the state Department of Health.
Over 100 people in New York died on Monday due to the coronavirus for the second time in the last week. Covid-19 has killed more than 300 people in Onondaga County.
Nationwide, the death toll is over 300,000.
Katrina Tulloch shoots videos and writes stories for Syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Contact her: Email | Twitter | Facebook
Jim Mulder contributed to this report.
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