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Vaccinations Bring a 'Little Ray of Light' to Memphis Hospital Workers

Katie Riordan

After returning from Mardi Gras festivities in New Orleans earlier this year, Marilyn Davis became Shelby County’s patient zero—or the first locally documented case of COVID-19 on March 8. 

On Thursday, just over nine months later, she experienced another historic, pandemic milestone as she received one of the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doled out to Memphis-area hospitals for their frontline healthcare workers. 

“I was nervous at first, I’ve never had this much attention,” Davis said at Baptist Memorial Hospital in East Memphis, where she works as a cardiac monitor technician. “I just want to be here to let people know that even though I survived this, I’d rather take this vaccine than go through what I went through again.”

In addition to Baptist, several other Shelby County hospitals, including Regional One Health, Methodist Le Bonheur-Germantown and Methodist University Hospital, also began their vaccination campaigns on Thursday. They all received a small portion of the state’s initial 56,500 doses from Pfizer. 

Regional One says their first round of nearly 2,000 doses will be enough to inoculate their staff at highest risk for exposure to the virus, but many hospitals across the state will await further shipments to completely cover those included in the highest priority group

Facilities within the Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare system received about 3,900 doses this week, but according to a spokeperson, there are an estimated 4,600 staff members who qualify for the priority group. 

Tennessee is slated to receive an additional 115,000 doses of the vaccine next week from the drug company Moderna, which is likely to get the go ahead from federal regulators on Friday to start distributing its vials. 

Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two doses, taken weeks apart. 

For some who rolled up a sleeve on Thursday to receive their first jab, it felt surreal. 

Credit Courtesy of Regional One Health
Gov. Bill Lee watched as Regional One Health began vaccinating some of its staff on Thursday.

  

Brett Walker, a nurse in a COVID unit at Baptist Memorial, said he knew a vaccine would come, but he didn’t expect it so soon. 

“I feel like I’ve been through all ranges of emotions during this. Initially, there was a lot of fear and anxiety,” he said. “Then the day actually comes where we might actually get to turn the corner on this.”  

Tennessee is in dire need of turning the corner as it experiences one of the worst surges in the nation. As of Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had the highest number of new COVID cases per 100,000 people.  

About 550 people as of Wednesday are filling Shelby County's hospital beds, a number that's been hovering at an all-time high.

"It astounds me everyday to see a patient in the ICU who says I'd been really careful until I had a bunch of people over to my house that I don't know, or even family members or extended family members," said Dr. Steve Threlkeld, an infectious disease expert who was also vaccinated Thursday. "This is how the virus is really hurting us right now. People forget that your cousins, and family members and your good friends can give you the virus."   

Davis, who was hospitalized when she fell ill and spent months in recovery, says too many people are still unwilling to adjust their behavior even as a record number of Americans are dying from the virus. 

“It just makes me angry to see people still going along with life like normal, but right now we're in the middle of a pandemic,” she said. “Trust me you don’t want this virus, you don’t want it at all.”

Still, Threlkeld says the vaccine's arrival is a boost many needed.

“You almost can’t see the darkness you’ve been in until you just get a little ray of light to illuminate where you are,” he said.  

Katie is a part-time WKNO contributor. She's always eager to hear your story ideas. You can email her at kriordan@wkno.org