First Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccinations take place in the UK

By Michael Le Page

Jacob King/PA Wire/PA Images

The roll-out of a vaccine against the coronavirus has begun in the UK. On 8 December, more than 50 hospitals across the country started to vaccinate people aged over 80 and some healthcare staff against the coronavirus, after the UK became the first nation to authorise a vaccine developed by US pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its partner BioNTech for emergency use on 2 December.

The first person to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was Margaret Keenan. “I feel so privileged to be the first person vaccinated against covid-19. It’s the best early birthday present I could wish for because it means I can finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends in the new year after being on my own for most of the year,” Keenan, who is about to turn 91, told reporters.

“My advice to anyone offered the vaccine is to take it. If I can have it at 90, then you can have it too,” she said.

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Keenan was given the injection at University Hospital in Coventry. She is due to have a second dose in around three weeks. The full immune response to the two doses should kick in by early January, greatly – but not completely – reducing her risk of developing covid-19 if she is exposed to the coronavirus.

The second person to get the shot at the hospital was 81-year-old William Shakespeare, prompting a wave of Shakespeare-related references on social media.

The UK has received 800,000 doses of the vaccine, and is due to get millions more by the end of the year. However, vaccinating the 12 million people aged over 65, let alone all those who are eligible, will be a massive challenge.

UK health minister Matt Hancock said life might start to get back to normal as early as springtime in the northern hemisphere. “I hope we can lift the restrictions from the spring,” he said on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

In the meantime, people need to follow the rules, he said, warning that rising cases in some parts of the country might lead to the introduction of tougher restrictions.

In some other countries, vaccination has already begun. Chinese company Sinopharm said in November that around a million people in China had already received its vaccine. Mass vaccination also began in Russia this week.

Regulators in the European Union and the US haven’t yet approved the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, but are expected to do so in the coming weeks, allowing vaccination to begin in many more countries. Two other vaccines have also completed phase III trials and could soon be approved in Europe and the US. Those are the mRNA vaccine developed by Moderna, and that made by pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca in collaboration with the University of Oxford.

“Progress on vaccines gives us all a lift and we can now start to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, said on 4 December.

“However, WHO is concerned that there is a growing perception that the pandemic is over,” he said. “The truth is that, at present, many places are witnessing very high transmission of the virus, which is putting enormous pressure on hospitals, intensive care units and health workers.”