A Black nurse in Queens, New York, is the first U.S. citizen to get the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine according to The New York Times.

Jewish Medical Center ICU nurse Sandra Lindsay received the dose on Monday. She was inoculated by Dr. Michelle Chester, who is also Black, according to ABC News.

"I want to instill public confidence that the vaccine is safe. We are in a pandemic and so we all need to do our part to put an end to the pandemic and to not give up so soon," Lindsay said. "There is light at the end of the tunnel but we still need to continue to wear our mask, to social distance."

Lindsay, who has been working at the Queens hospital since the beginning of the pandemic, begged Black people to trust science over any conspiracy theories they may see on YouTube or WhatsApp.

"I believe in science as a nurse. my practice is guided by science and so I trust science," Lindsay said after being inoculated. "What I don't trust is that if I contract COVID, I don't know how it will impact me or those who I come in contact with. So I encourage everyone to take the vaccine."

"I would like to thank all of the frontline workers, all my colleagues who have been doing a yeoman's job to fight this pandemic all over the world. I am hopeful today, relieved. I hope this marks the beginning of the end of a very painful time in our history," she continued.

The vaccine will first be distributed to healthcare workers and staff members and residents of nursing homes, however, White House employees will also be among the first to receive the inoculation, according to The New York Times. The newspaper reported that Pfizer has doses for 170,000 people available, and another 346,000 doses from the drugmaker Moderna are on the way. The U.S. struck a deal with Pfizer for an additional 100 million doses of the vaccine to be distributed sometime in March. The doses will be administered to the general public at no cost, according to the agreement.

For months, doctors have sought to dispel unfounded conspiracy theories running rampant throughout the Black community that the COVID-19 vaccine was not safe. 

There have been dozens of op-eds and interviews from scientists trying their best to convince Black people that it was safe, and necessary, to take the vaccine. As Blavity previously reported, infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci attended a National Urban League event and reminded the audience that a Black woman played a pivotal role in developing the vaccine. 

The National Institute of Health immunologist Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett led a team of scientists in developing the vaccine that is being released by pharmaceutical company Moderna. 

"So, the first thing you might want to say to my African American brothers and sisters is that the vaccine that you're going to be taking was developed by an African American woman. And that is just a fact," Fauci said. 

"The very vaccine that’s one of the two that has absolutely exquisite levels — 94 to 95 percent efficacy against clinical disease and almost 100 percent efficacy against serious disease that are shown to be clearly safe — that vaccine was actually developed in my institute’s vaccine research center by a team of scientists led by Dr. Barney Graham and his close colleague, Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, or Kizzy Corbett,” Fauci added.

In her own interviews, Corbett has said she understands why so many Black people are not interested in taking the vaccine due to the long history of racism in U.S. healthcare and dozens of instances throughout history where Black communities were tested against their will. 

Many celebrities have caused controversy by spreading the idea that the vaccine is not safe in recent days. Hip-hop legend Pete Rock and actress Letitia Wright both made waves in recent weeks by either questioning the point of the vaccine or spreading conspiracy theories about its contents. The Joe Budden Podcast faced backlash online after their most recent episode featured an extended segment where they bashed one of the hosts for saying he would take the vaccine. 

Corbett said questioning the vaccine is not a bad thing and acknowledged the long list of valid reasons Black people have for not trusting doctors. In interviews, she has said it will take even more work from Black doctors and scientists to convince people that the vaccine is not only safe but vital for saving lives within the Black community, which is suffering from a disproportionate amount of deaths related to the virus. 

"I would say to people who are vaccine-hesitant that you've earned the right to ask the questions that you have around these vaccines and this vaccine development process," Corbett said, according to CNN.

"What I say to people firstly is that I empathize, and then secondly is that I’m going to do my part in laying those bricks. And I think that if everyone on our side, as physicians and scientists, went about it that way, then the trust would start to be rebuilt,” Corbett said, according to The Hill.

While much of the world is starting to open back up, the United States is now facing an even worse outbreak than ever before, setting records for COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths last week due in part to months of internal fighting over mask mandates and lockdowns, according to CNBC.

According to the COVID Tracking Project, 232,000 people tested positive for COVID-19, and 2,749 people died from the virus on Friday alone. There are nearly 110,000 people being hospitalized for COVID-19 infections and experts like Fauci say the numbers are sure to spike as people gather for the Christmas holiday.  

Despite the troubling increase in deaths, infections and hospitalizations, surveys have shown that the vast majority of Black people do not trust the vaccine and do not plan to take it, even with hundreds of news stories and studies showing that Black and Latinx people are more likely to die from COVID-19 than other races. So far, one in 1,000 Black Americans has died from COVID-19 while one in 2,100 whites had died, according to Vox.

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