Vaccinations a 'gift' says N.L. nurse, 74, after 1st COVID-19 dose

It's been a week since Newfoundland and Labrador started administering COVID-19 vaccinations to front-line health-care workers, and for some it meant a whole lot more than simply closing the chapter on an unpredictable year.

Diana Kearley, 74, an emergency room nurse at the Dr. Walter Templeman Health Centre on Bell Island, received her first of two doses of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine on Saturday afternoon.

"I viewed the vaccines when they arrived, as early as they did, as a gift agift to mankind and it's unfortunate that all mankind don't view it as a gift," Kearley told CBC Radio's On The Go.

"But, when you're 74 and you've been through other breakthrough vaccinations for illnesses that kill children, and adults, and mothers and fathers, any vaccination is a gift."

For Kearley, the COVID-19 pandemic isthe latest in living and working through challenging health-care situations. She has decadesof memories from some of the world's most trying situations, including the tail end oftuberculosis,polio and SARS.

• 'Beginning of the end': Health-care workers get N.L.'s 1st COVID-19 vaccinations

She was also anewly graduated nurse in 1983 as theAIDS epidemic began sweeping the world.

"I, as a nurse working in intensive care, did look after a young AIDS patient at that time who died," she said.

"Back then, that was scary. It's like when COVID arrived. Nobody knew anything about COVID. But we were more prepared today for COVID than we were for AIDS."

'These vaccinations arrived to put an end to it'

Kearley falls into two of the vulnerable groups government and health officials have been trying to protect for the duration of the pandemic since March.

But asboth a front-line health-care worker, and a senior citizen,Kearley said she was worried not about theactions she was taking but about people who weren't following public health advice.

"I have no fear that I'm not going to look after me or you. My only fear is that you won't look after me by following procedure," she said.

When she says age is just a number, she really means it.

Kearley pulls no punches in discussing the medical science that went into developing the ongoing rollout of vaccinations, swatting away fears and conspiracies that have surfaced since the initial announcement.

"People who are afraid to go out and take this vaccine because of the length of time it didn't take to develop it, they must realize that the development of it is probably the shortest part of it all," she said, adding in normal circumstances vaccinations are usually caught up in red tape, paperwork and funding.

"This is my take on it:we read history books about the Spanish influenza and the black plague, and thought, 'My God, the devastation.' In a generation's time people will read about this and they'll say, 'My God, the devastation.' But these vaccinations arrived to put an end to it," she said.

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