Rachel Grech, the staff nurse who became the first person to receive the Covid-19 vaccine in Malta, has spoken of her hope that her experience will encourage Maltese and Gozitans to get vaccinated when they can do so.
Speaking after becoming the first person to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Sunday, Grech, who works in Mater Dei Hospital’s Infectious Diseases Unit, said that she was honoured to have been the first to receive the vaccine, adding that she hoped that the experience can send a message to the Maltese and Gozitans to get vaccinated.
Grech was vaccinated on Sunday morning, with the vaccination being transmitted live on television and on social media. 55 people will be vaccinated on Sunday, with vaccinations continuing in the coming days as Malta goes through it’s first batch of 10,000 vaccines.
Looking back on the past months, Grech said that they were difficult times for everyone, thanking her colleagues.
“We had to adapt to work with PPEs, but we touched the hearts of a lot of patients”, she said.
She explained how they tried to make the days of their patients a bit better, even if they had to stay away from their families and even if they couldn’t even see their expressions from under the PPEs.
She said that before some time passes, social distancing needs to be practiced, as does the wearing of masks, but noted that when the majority of the population takes the vaccine, then there will be some light at the end of the tunnel and our lives can go back to what they were before.