Live: 1st Chicago healthcare workers receive 2nd dose of Pfizer vaccine

The first five frontline healthcare workers who received the COVID-19 vaccine in the city went back for their second dose Tuesday morning.Dr. Marina Del Rios, emergency physician at University of Illinois Health, called it a “relief.”

She was among the original five who volunteered to get inoculated last month at Chicago’s Loretto Hospital.

Del Rios said she did it for the sake of her family and those in her community hesitant to get vaccinated. Completing her inoculation gives her optimism.

“I’m hoping this year, this is a start of better things to come,” Rios said.

The event at Norwegian American Hospital Tuesday morning was an effort to highlight the importance of people coming back for a second dose to make the vaccine fully effective.

Health experts say that the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is not fully effective without the second dose.

Both vaccination events were held at hospitals serving communities hit hardest by COVID-19. This was a to boost vaccine rates among Black and Latinx residents. Del Rios said there is still more work to be done to convince those who are skeptical that the vaccine is safe.