Registered Nurse Connie Grams gives a thumbs up after receiving the COVID-19 vaccination. She was the first person to receive the vaccine at New Ulm Medical Center. She would later administer the vaccine to her fellow co-workers.

NEW ULM — At approximately 10:18 a.m. Connie Grams, a registered nurse at New Ulm Medical Center (NUMC), became the first person in Brown County to receive the Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19.

NUMC scheduled 55 vaccines to be administered to frontline staff Tuesday. The medical center plans to scheduled two vaccination days a week. The goal is to have all staff receive the first vaccination by January.

Grams has worked as a nurse for 48 years and said she has received plenty of other vaccines over the years and administered a fair number of vaccines.

In fact, after receiving the vaccine, Grams put her nurse coat back on and administered the next few doses of the COVID vaccines to Director of Patient Care Jennifer Brehmer and Dr. Joan Krikava.

“This is important if we ever want things to go back to normal,” Grams said.

She understood that some people were nervous about the vaccine, but said all vaccines are new at first.

“The polio vaccine was new once,” she said. “Most people today don’t know anyone who has had polio.”

Grams believed any risk of long-term effects from the vaccine was minimal compared to the long-term effects of COVID.

Dr. Krikava, an Internal Medicine specialist, was the third person at NUMC to receive the vaccine and said it was a relief.

“Everyone who gets it should be relieved,” Krikava said.

Krikava was confident in the effectiveness of the vaccine. She said the immunization has been studied and shows a 95% effective rate.

Krikava said the vaccine could have long-term side effects that show up years later, but said “we don’t have years.”

Her main response to concerns about vaccine side effects is any potential side effects would likely be less severe than the long-term effects of COVID-19.

“We know COVID-19 is very bad,” she said. “You could die or have other long-term health problems.”

Even those who survive a COVID-19 infection can have health problems long after the virus is gone. Krikava said the vaccine side effects would need to be truly terrible to outweigh the known risks of COVID.

“To see if there is a problem with side effects in five years, we have to first make it five years,” She said.

Forty thousand people were involved in the initial vaccine studies and several thousand more have already received the vaccine.

Krikava said there has been no evidence of adverse effects from the vaccine at this time. Typically, if there is a negative response to a vaccine, it happens shortly after being administered.

Krikava said the shot did not hurt, but said it was cold. The vaccine needs to be stored at minus-70 degrees.

The COVID-19 vaccine is a two-shot vaccine. Everyone who receives the first injection must receive a second two weeks later. All NUMC staff who received a shot on Tuesday must come back for the second shot on Jan. 12.

It is unknown how long this vaccine will protect a person from COVID. Krikava said that it will take time to know that. This vaccine could protect a person indefinitely, or it might need to be a yearly vaccine like the flu shot.

Krikava was supportive of the immunization process. She believed these were the best forms of preventative medicine and vaccines were one of the best things to happen to humanity. Countless diseases and viruses are no longer concerns because of the creation of vaccines. She believes this vaccine is the best possible method for ending the COVID pandemic. Herd immunity is not a reasonable solution.

NUMC received over 200 doses of the vaccine last week. Further doses of the vaccine will be shipped to NUMC in the following weeks. The medical center will serve as a regional hub for the distribution of immunization because it has the necessary freezer space necessary for storage.