'Easiest and most painless': UCSF Fresno doctor describes receiving COVID-19 vaccine shot

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Community Medical Centers officials are doing their best to get as many health care providers vaccinated as possible after receiving their first batch of the COVID-19 Pfizer shots last week.

On Monday, some frontline workers with UCSF Fresno were allowed to get the vaccine as well.

Dr. Kenny Banh is an emergency medicine physician at UCSF Fresno. On Monday, he received his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

"Honestly it's the best Christmas present I could ever have. Super excited to be getting it," he said.

"This is the easiest and most painless vaccine I ever got. If I wasn't staring at it with a needle in my arm I wouldn't have known the needle was going in."

After getting the shot Dr. Banh was right back to his rounds at Community Regional Medical Center treating COVID-19 patients.

"I just snuck out to get the shot. I had to go back but it definitely put a little kick in my step today, I was hopping around and pretty excited about it," he said.

The vaccine comes at a crucial time as COVID cases continue to surge and ICU bed space is next to none in our region.

"I run a COVID testing center that outreaches to the poorer areas as well as communities of color and our cases are over 30%. Basically, one in three people we're testing have COVID, it's just positive, positive, positive one after another," he said.

To help absorb the rapid rise of COVID-19 cases, a 50-bed alternate care site is now set up in the North Plaza at Community Regional Medical Center.

The facility will provide much-needed relief and will be available for all area hospitals.

"As emergency physicians and ICU doctors, we are certainly overwhelmed by the numbers of COVID positive patients. We're doing our best, we have a lot of staff that are out and a lot of doctors that are out and we don't have a lot of physical space for the amount for those that are sick right now," he said.