Health care workers at local Ochsner facilities receive COVID-19 vaccine

Dr. Mohammad Nawaz, an internal medicine specialist at Ochsner St. Anne in Raceland, said he was “miserable” after watching the Saints lose to the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday. 

But he received some news that lifted his spirits the next day — that he would soon be getting the recently approved COVID-19 vaccine, which he had been following the progress of for quite some time. 

“It was really exciting to read about the data and how good the vaccine is, and we were anticipating when it would get approved by the FDA,” he said. “We were itching about when we were going to get it. So, I was very excited.” 

Nawaz was among the first groups of health care workers at local Ochsner Health facilities who received their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine Tuesday afternoon. 

The doctor shared that the vaccine gives him peace of mind. Moving from room to room to visit patients, Nawaz said, he wants to make sure he’s protected so he doesn’t spread the virus. 

“God forbid that you are asymptomatic and you give it to a patient unknowingly,” he said. “If you can eliminate that by getting a vaccine, knowing that now I’m immune and I won’t be the source or the carrier to spread that disease, is priceless.” 

Nawaz has no doubts about its effectiveness.

“The more educated you get about [the vaccine], the better you feel about it. They took about 43,000-plus patients. They put them into two groups…They gave one half a placebo and the other half the vaccine. And lo behold, for the people who got the shot, 95 percent did not get the disease,” he explained.

He also noted that Pfizer’s vaccine has about a 50 percent efficacy rate after the first dose and it has a 95 percent efficacy after the second one, which recipients take 21 days after their initial dose. 

Erin Kinnard, an emergency room physician assistant at Ochsner’s Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center, said she was relieved to get the vaccine on Tuesday, but she will be more relaxed once she gets the second dose. 

A member of the South Louisiana Medical Associates (SLMA), she also worries about when the people in her life, including her co-workers at her other clinic and her family, will receive the vaccine as well. 

Yet, Kinnard expressed how it is the beginning of an end to a difficult chapter in America and how grateful she is to take the historic vaccine. 

“I’m relieved that we’re moving on. We finally have something to help us all move past this and on with the rest of our lives,” she said. “I would just like to thank Ochsner and SLMA for making it possible for us to be some of the first people to take the vaccine.” 

With the unprecedented speed that it took to develop and be approved compared to others in the past, the vaccine has seen its fair share of skeptics. However, Kinnard and Nawaz both said they feel fine. 

“If you trust science, science is very clear that this works, and the side effects, we are being told, are very minor,” explained Nawaz, who has been with Ochsner St. Anne for 22 years. “They [the side effects] are not any different than any flu shot or pneumonia shot, which we give every day.” 

With no clear timetable for when the coronavirus vaccine will be available to the general public, with some reports stating spring or even summer, Nawaz noted that residents should still remain vigilant. 

“Social distancing, wearing a mask and frequent hand-washing will be with us at least five to six more months,” he added. “But this is the beginning of an end.”