LONDON (Reuters) – Britain has begun vaccinating its population with Oxford University and AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 fired on Monday in a first global call, which is fighting to protect the elderly and vulnerable as a new wave of cases threatens to overflow hospitals.
Britain announced a scientific “triumph” that put it at the forefront of the West, as dialysis patient Brian Pinker, 82, became the first person to receive the Oxford / AstraZeneca shot. out of a trial.
As major powers see the benefits of getting out of the pandemic first, Britain is rushing to vaccinate its population faster than the United States and the rest of Europe, although Russia and China have been inoculating the pandemics for months. its citizens.
Just under a month since Britain became the first country in the world to deploy the vaccine developed by Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, Pinker, who has kidney disease, received the Oxford / AstraZeneca shot.
“I am very happy to receive the vaccine against COVID today and I am very proud that it was the one that was invented in Oxford,” said Pinker, a retired maintenance manager, a few hundred yards from where the vaccine was developed. .
Pinker said he hoped to celebrate his 48th wedding anniversary in February with his wife Shirley.
Britain, facing the sixth worst death toll in the world and one of the worst economic successes of the COVID crisis, has experienced a resurgence of cases to new daily highs.
This has turned urgency into deployment plans. Britain prioritises getting a first dose of vaccine to as many people as possible before giving second doses, although some doctors and scientists express concern.
Since the launch of the Pfizer vaccine on December 8, Britain has put into arms more than a million COVID-19 vaccines, more than the rest of Europe, said Health Secretary Matt Hancock .
“This is a triumph of British science that we have managed to get where we are,” Hancock told Sky. “At first, we saw that the vaccine was the only long-term way out.”
The government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson has secured 100 million doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine that can be stored at refrigerator temperatures of between two and eight degrees, making it easier to distribute than the Pfizer shot.
Six hospitals in England administer the first of Britain’s 530,000 doses ready. The program will be expanded to hundreds of other British sites in the coming days and the government expects to deliver tens of millions of doses in a few months.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they administered 4.2 million first doses of COVID-19 vaccines as of Saturday morning and distributed 13.07 million doses.
But Israel is the world leader: more than a tenth of its population has been vaccinated and Israel now administers more than 150,000 doses a day.
VACCINE RACE
Britain became the first Western country to approve and deploy a COVID-19 vaccine. Others have taken a longer, more cautious approach, although Russia and China have inoculated their citizens for months with several different vaccines that are still undergoing testing in the final stages.
On December 31, China approved its first COVID-19 vaccine for general public use, a feature developed by a subsidiary of the state-backed pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm. The company said it is 79% effective against the virus.
Russia said on November 24 that its Sputnik V vaccine was 91.4% effective based on the provisional results of the final phase trials. He started vaccinations in August and has so far inoculated more than 100,000 people.
India on Sunday approved the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine for emergency use.
Two new variants of the coronavirus complicate the COVID-19 response and may force new national restrictions in England.
Scientists are not fully confident that COVID-19 vaccines will work in a variant found in South Africa, ITV political editor Robert Peston said.
Cases have also been fueled by a highly transmissible variant of the UK and more than 75,000 people in the UK have died from COVID 28 days after the positive test.
Johnson said Sunday that there are likely to be tougher restrictions, even with millions already living below the strictest level of rules.
England is divided into four different levels, depending on the prevalence of the virus, and Hancock said the rules in some parts of the country at level 3 clearly did not work.
Asked if the government was thinking of imposing a new national closure, Hancock said, “We don’t rule anything out.”
Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford vaccine group, also received the vaccine on Monday.
“We are on the verge of being overwhelmed by this disease,” he told BBC TV. “I think (the vaccine) gives us some hope, but I think we have some tough weeks ahead.”
Written by William James, Guy Faulconbridge and Alistair Smout; Editing by Susan Fenton, Kate Holton, Raissa Kasolowsky and Nick Macfie