Hard Hit Elmhurst Hospital Gets First Coronavirus Vaccinations

NEW YORK CITY — No place suffered or fought as much when the coronavirus first washed over New York City than Elmhurst Hospital.

Health care workers toiled for long days and weeks as an overwhelming mass of COVID-19 patients inundated its beds. Death was everywhere.

But Elmhurst’s staff — and a city inspired by their sacrifices — fought back the virus to a level once unimaginable in those painful spring days. On Wednesday, the hospital became the staging ground for the last battle in the pandemic as two workers rolled up their sleeves and became the first city public hospital workers to receive coronavirus vaccines.

“There’s no more fitting place than here,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “This is the place where it should be because this is the heroic place. I really want to emphasize, this is the heroic place.”

Veronica “Ronny” Delgado, the lead physician assistant in the hospital’s emergency room, and William Kelly, an environmental services worker who keeps the facility clean, were the lucky workers who received the doses.

“I feel good,” Kelly said.

Delgado said she hoped everyone can get the vaccine quickly — so far, only frontline health care workers have received the vaccine since it arrived in the city on Monday. She told New Yorkers not to be afraid of the vaccine.

“And not to get your information off of Facebook,” she said to rousing laughter.

More than 1,600 health care workers have received the vaccine in the city since Monday — Delgado and Kelly were the first Health + Hospitals employees to do so.

De Blasio said the vaccination pace will pick up substantially in the coming days and weeks.

“Our health care team had to obviously get to know this vaccine, get used to the details of how to handle it,” he said. “But you’re going to see a very, very rapid expansion and as soon as vaccine comes in it is going to get distributed, it’s going to get used very quickly.”

Mitchell Katz, who heads Health + Hospitals, said everyone working in Elmhurst Hospital will be vaccinated in the next three weeks.