CONWAY, S.C. — One year ago, the largest vaccination effort in American history began as shipments of the first U.S. coronavirus vaccine rolled out.
Dr. Stephen Brady, the Director of Medical Cardiology at Conway Medical Center, was the first to receive the shot in South Carolina.
"It was a total surprise," he said. "I was just going down to get my vaccine.... I asked, well, who are all these people here for? And they said, ‘cause they’re going to give the first vaccine in the state, and I said, oh, cool. Who is that? And then they said it was me.”
As a healthcare worker, Brady was one of the first eligible. He hoped his decision would help others decide to get the shots too.
“I believed in the science," he said. "I really wanted my patients to get it because this disease was starting to kill people and we needed to get way ahead of it. So, how can I ask other people to do something I won’t?”
At that time, 1.6 million people from around the world had died from the virus.
"We had places where we were having problems putting people in body bags," he said. "My daughter and her husband were up in New York City and they were just talking about evacuating from there and getting out.”
So, he decided to roll up his sleeve, receiving the Pfizer vaccine, the only brand available in the country at that time.
"Unfortunately, the vaccine doesn’t cause weight loss because that was a little disappointing, but other than that I felt fine. I’ve had both vaccination shots. I got the booster shot as soon as I could," he said. "The science has provided for us a way to go ahead and advance and protect ourselves from this disease."
So far, a little more than 50 percent of the state is fully vaccinated.