Filipino American doctor among the first to get vaccinated against COVID-19

SCREEN CAPTURE / MSNBC

Dr. Valerie Briones-Pryor was among the first to receive the Covid-19 vaccine in Kentucky

Shortly after she lost her 27th patient to the coronavirus, Dr. Valerie Briones Pryor was among the first to receive the COVID-19 virus vaccine.

"I know all their names. I know all their faces," said the physician at the University of Louisville Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.

The Pfizer vaccine arrived in insulated boxes the same morning after Pryor lost her latest patient in her hospital's COVID ward where she has been taking care of patients since March. “The vaccine I took today was for her family, and the other 26 (patients) I have lost,” Briones-Pryor said.

The first shipment of the new Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which requires two doses, arrived at University of Louisville Hospital about 9:40 a.m. Monday, (Dec. 14) in a UPS delivery truck. Health care workers in there were the first to receive injections.

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DR. VALERIE BRIONES-PRYOR

“I want to get back to seeing my family,” Briones-Pryor said to the Associated Press. “I want families to be able to get back to seeing their loved ones.”

Health care workers are first in line for the vaccine, but about 25,000 doses from the first shipment are headed to CVS and other pharmacies to begin vaccinating people in long-term care facilities.

As the medical director of the UofL Health Medicine Service Line and the doctor in the UofL Health Jewish Hospital COVID-19 unit, Briones-Pryor has seen up close what kind of damage the coronavirus can do.

"I have patients who can't breathe. I'm giving them the highest amounts of oxygen that I can give them without putting them on a ventilator and they're still struggling to breathe," she told WNEP. "I see folks who are 50-years old who can't even walk from the bed to the bathroom without getting short of breath."

While she understands the majority of people who contract COVID-19 will not have to stay at a hospital, she said patients' response to treatment vary from person to  person.

"You hope when you get it you'll be in the majority that recover and don't ever have to come to the hospital, but you don't know that," she said. "I don't know that of you. I can just pray for the best for you."

Briones-Pryor said the treatments appear to be becoming more effective as doctors and nurses learn more about the virus. But she said she and other healthcare workers have noticed a new challenge when it comes to preventing the spread of COVID-19 - something that is being called "COVID fatigue" or "pandemic fatigue" as the sense of togetherness and willingness to make sacrifices that had been the norm in the early months of the pandemic have now turned to frustration.

"We see it even here," she said. "When is this going to end? When can we go back to normal? When can I stop wearing this mask? And we can't. When I come up on the COVID floor and I see a whole new group of patients that weren't here two days ago, I know that we can't get tired."

But with the arrival of the first vaccines, for the first time in a long time, Briones-Pryor said she and her colleagues feel hope. 

More than 2,000 Kentuckians have lost their lives to COVID-19 since the first case was confirmed in the state on March 6th. The pandemic continues to grip the state with 119 of 120 counties reporting uncontrolled spread of the virus.

Both of Briones-Pryor's parents are physicians who immigrated from the Philippines. The family legacy is one of the reason Briones-Pryor says she can’t imagine doing anything else, but that's not the only reason.

“People talk about a calling and I know it sounds corny, but that’s really what it was for me, and it wasn’t necessarily because of my parents," she said in a 2018 interview. "It’s where I fit. I feel fortunate and blessed because God showed me what to do early on. When I put on my scrubs, I feel like I should tell my 4-year-old son I’m going to work because that’s what adults do, but it really isn’t work to me.”