Daniel McCarthy watched a Queens, N.Y. nurse’s televised COVID-19 vaccination Monday to become the first New Yorker with the vaccine and among the earliest ranks with the shot.
One emotion welled inside McCarthy: Relief.
“The vaccine sends the message we are gaining control back,” said McCarthy, a registered nurse working in outpatient care for a Long Island, N.Y.-based hospital system.
In the pandemic’s early spring days, McCarthy stood outside for 15 minutes to calm his nerves before walking inside the home of his first patient recovering from a coronavirus hospitalization.
In those first months, he paid multiple trips to approximately 25 patients. Then there was a lull from summer to early fall, some of those months going without any new patients.
That all changed last month.
“Right after Thanksgiving, I’m started to get bombarded” with new patients — four new patients over the weekend and three the week…
