Smiles abounded Tuesday afternoon at CHI Health Mercy Council Bluffs, site of the first COVID-19 vaccine shots in Pottawattamie County.
Mandi Clauss, an intensive care unit nurse who's been at CHI Mercy Council Bluffs for eight years, was first up. Joking with nurse Amanda Radford as she prepped the shot, Clauss readied her left arm for a little history. Afterward, a cheer went up in a hospital meeting room, repurposed as a vaccination clinic.
"It's amazing to be the first in the hospital to get it. It's amazing to be on this side of COVID, where we have hope again," Clauss said. "Because we had lost hope. And this is hope. This is what hope looks like, right here in this room."