LOS ANGELES: Los Angeles’ Cedars Sinai Medical Center is one of the first hospitals in the United States to have received the COVID-19 vaccine. Overseeing the distribution effort is Arab doctor Heitham Hassoun.
“I’m proud to be Lebanese of origin to be Arab,” said Hassoun, the Vice President & Medical Director for International Health at Cedars Sinai. “I’m also proud to be an American so for me it’s a it’s it’s really natural that I do my best for both communities.”
Some 327,000 doses of the vaccine have arrived in California with 87,000 of them going to Los Angeles County. The two-dose vaccine is already being administered to 6,000 frontline healthcare workers.
“Of course there’s some logistical issues around storing the vaccine,” he said. “You need to have the volume and space with these ultracold freezers to be able to store mass quantities so it’s been keeping our operational team quite busy.”
The minus 80 C freezers can store the vaccines for up to six months. The inoculation will be administered in phases, and while the general public won’t receive them until mid-2021, the vaccine is a sign of significant progress.
“It’s been a devastating year as you know, not only for us here in Los Angeles but around the world and we keep an eye on that and we’re doing our best to really fight this battle against the coronavirus,” Hassoun said. “I don’t feel far from home and I’m fortunate to work in leading our international work and we are daily in connection with friends and colleagues and family throughout the Middle East so I don’t feel far.”
