VIDEO : Bayhealth Nurse Receives Delaware’s 1st COVID Vaccine

Elisabeth Cote, a progressive care nurse with Bayhealth, will go down in history as the first Delawarean to receive the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

Cote received the vaccine Tuesday morning at the Bayhealth Kent campus in Dover, about 24 hours after the first shipment of the vaccine arrived in Delaware. Under the state’s vaccination program, frontline health care staff are among the first to receive the vaccine.

“These vaccines will provide critical protection to our frontline workers whose lives are at risk every day due to COVID-19,” Bayhealth President and CEO Terry Murphy said. “I’m proud of how our team at Bayhealth has responded to this pandemic, especially as we take this first step to protect our entire community with the help of this vaccine in the months ahead.”

“After nine long months fighting COVID-19, this is a moment of hope for Delaware and for our country. There is a light at the end of the tunnel,” Governor John Carney said. “Delaware’s nurses, doctors, nursing assistants, and non-medical staff have all demonstrated courage and leadership every day of this COVID-19 crisis. Now, nurses like Elisabeth Cote are leading by example again by stepping up to get the COVID-19 vaccine. It is because of them that we will beat this pandemic and come out stronger on the other side.”