First COVID-19 shot recipient in US now a vaccine activist

FILE - Sandra Lindsay, left, a nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, is inoculated with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine by Dr. Michelle Chester, Monday, Dec. 14, 2020, in the Queens borough of New York. Lindsay has appeared on panels, Zoom town halls and at other events in the United States and in Jamaica, her homeland, promoting vaccination and addressing questions, fears and misconceptions from the public. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, Pool, File) FILE - Sandra Lindsay, left, a nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, is inoculated with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine by Dr. Michelle Chester, Monday, Dec. 14, 2020, in the Queens borough of New York. Lindsay has appeared on panels, Zoom town halls and at other events in the United States and in Jamaica, her homeland, promoting vaccination and addressing questions, fears and misconceptions from the public. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, Pool, File)

By LINDSEY TANNER / AP Medical Writer December 28, 2021 3 min read

She became a vaccine celebrity by accident.

Since being hailed as the first person in the United States to get a COVID-19 vaccine, New York nurse Sandra Lindsay has become a prominent face in the country’s biggest-ever vaccination campaign.

She has been promoting the shots on panels, in Zoom town halls and at other events.

“I encourage people to speak to experts who can answer their questions, to access trusted science. I let them know that it’s OK to ask questions,” said Lindsay, who has spoken at events in the U.S. and Jamaica, where she is from.

Lindsay got her shot in a widely televised moment on December 14 of last year as the U.S. was kicking off its vaccination effort. After getting emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration just days earlier, the first shipments of COVID-19 vaccines had been arriving at hospitals for high-risk health care workers.