Five emergency responders will be the first members of the D.C. Fire and EMS Department to get the COVID-19 vaccine this coming week, a sign that “the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a news release.
The group, designated "The First Five," are FEMS Chief John Donnelly, the department’s Medical Director Dr. Robert Holman, Lieutenants Joseph Papariello and Keishea Jackson, and firefighter/EMT Julio Quinteros. All are D.C. residents. Some of the First Five expressed their desire to get vaccinated for their family members and “brothers and sisters in the firehouse” and encouraged widespread vaccination, according to the release.
“My father is everything to me; he’s my world. And if I don’t get it for any other reason, I have to get it for my daddy. I have to make sure he’s safe,” Jackson said.