The first shipment of the vaccine arrived at a loading dock in Queens shortly after sunrise on Monday. The head pharmacist for one of Northwell Health’s hospitals, who had been tracking the package, opened the 63-pound box, packed in dry ice. He took out a single vial.

From that vial would come five doses.

After preparing the vial, staff members put it in a cooler, and drove it 25 minutes east to Long Island Jewish Medical Center, where a news conference had been hastily moved up. A nurse, Sandra Lindsay, was waiting to get the first shot.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s office teleconferenced in. But it was not until just after 9 a.m., right before the broadcast began, that someone on the governor’s team said that it appeared they were not only about to administer the first dose in the state, but the first in the country.

“The silence in that room was deafening,” said Joe Kemp, communications officer for Northwell. “Hospital workers, Cuomo’s people. Every one of us realized at that minute, just how profound that was going to be. We were putting a woman on the moon. It was a lunar landing.”