CHOMP employees line up for first Covid-19 vaccines in a festive atmosphere.

Radiological Technologist Matthew Wafford had trouble sleeping Thursday night, beset with a mixture of nervousness and excitement knowing he was going to receive a Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in the morning at his workplace, Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula.

As the time for his vaccination came closer, 11am Friday, Dec. 18, he became more excited than nervous. And as it turns out, he was the very first of CHOMP's frontline workers to receive a vaccine. A total of 975 workers will be vaccinated through Tuesday using the hospital's first shipment of doses. 

"It was just like a normal flu shot," Wafford says. "I didn't feel anything, not even a tiny pinch."

The mood was jubilant and celebratory inside the hospital where a makeshift vaccination clinic was set up. The area was decorated with balloons and employees cheered as the first vaccinations were performed. Some were "filled with tears of joy," says Martha Blum, CHOMP's infectious disease specialist.

"Its such a happy day. People are really overcome with emotion," says Blum. "It's really the beginning of the end."

The vaccinations were taking place in a small room with three stations. The tiny vials of individual doses were in a styrofoam case, having been defrosted for about an hour, since the vaccine must be stored a below freezing temperatures. 

After being vaccinated, employees waited 15 minutes on lobby couches to make sure they didn't experience any adverse reactions. Before heading on their way they were given an orange "I got my Covid-19 Vaccine" sticker, with a "V" made up of the images of a Band-Aid and a checkmark.

Possible adverse reactions include rash and shortness of breathing, Blum says. The first employees vaccinated Friday morning were reporting no issues.

The hospital is encouraging everyone who gets vaccinated to participate in a monitoring program called V Safe. Once a person registers, they're sent text prompts to report how they're doing once a week for the first few weeks and then at months three, six and 12. It's a way to track the vaccine's effects and effectiveness for research, something that would have been done in lengthy vaccine trials under normal circumstances.

Blum's vaccination appointment is scheduled for Saturday. Steven Packer, Montage president and CEO, and a physician himself, won't get his for another week or two, he says, since he's not on the front lines of seeing patients. He was present Friday to watch the very first employees receive their shots.

"After what have been really, really challenging days and what we know will be challenging days ahead, it's just great to pause and celebrate this really remarkable milestone," he says. 

"If you think about it we have over 150 Covid patients in Monterey County—well over 30 at CHOMP—over 100,000 patients across the United States. Covid is now the number-one leading cause of death in the United States. For us to actually have a definitive vaccine that can help lead us out of this pandemic is really exciting," Packer says.

The hospital has an order in for 1,000 doses of another Covid-19 vaccine by Moderna, which could come in about a week, Packer says. (The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave emergency use approval of the Moderna vaccine later on Friday.)

While it was a happy moment, Blum acknowledges it was also bittersweet, since on the other side of the hospital there were 34 Covid-19 patients, the highest number the hospital has had, with 10 in the ICU.

For Wafford, there was another reason he was was feeling restless the night before his vaccination. After months of performing chest X-rays on Covid patients, the performed one on someone he knew just the day before.

"When it comes close to home it becomes a lot scarier," he says.