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.
Faced with an increasingly blurred background of record daily cases, Britain promoted a scientific “triumph” as dialysis patient Brian Pinker, 82, became the first person to receive the shot. ‘Oxford / AstraZeneca out of court.
“I am very pleased 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.
Britain, facing the sixth worst death toll in the world and one of the worst economic successes of the COVID crisis, was the first country to launch the vaccine developed by Pfizer and German BioNTech just under a month ago.
It is prioritized to get a first dose of vaccine to as many people as possible before giving two, although some doctors and scientists express concern.
Two new variants of coronavirus complicate the COVID-19 response and Britain has experienced a resurgence of cases to new daily highs.
Scientists are not fully confident that COVID-19 vaccines will work in a variant found in South Africa, said ITV political editor Robert Peston, while cases have also been fed a highly transmissible variant of the UK. United.
The launch of AstraZeneca came when Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned of the “difficult and hard weeks to come” and said new restrictions would be approved for England.
“If you look at the numbers, there’s no doubt we’ll have to take tougher action and announce them in time,” Johnson said on a visit to see the health professionals receiving the Oxford vaccine.
More than 75,000 people in the UK have died from COVID-19 within 28 days after a positive test and millions in England are already living below the strictest level of restrictions.
Ahead of Johnson, Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon imposed the tightest closure since last spring.
“It’s no exaggeration to say I’m more concerned about the situation we’re facing now that I haven’t been at any point since March,” he said.
TRIUMPH FOR SCIENCE
Since the launch of the Pfizer vaccine on December 8, Britain has administered more than a million COVID-19 vaccines, more than the rest of Europe, said Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who he added that it was a triumph of British science.
The Johnson administration has secured 100 million doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine that can be stored at temperatures of two or eight degrees in the refrigerator, 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.
More than a tenth of Israel’s population has had a vaccine and now administers more than 150,000 doses a day.
Germany and Denmark are studying the possibility of delaying the administration of a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine to make scarce supplies go further, following a similar move by Britain last week.
Britain became the first Western country to approve and deploy a vaccine against COVID-19, although it has been months behind Russia and China that have inoculated its citizens for months. Others have taken a longer, wiser approach. Several different vaccines are still being tested in the final stage.
India on Sunday approved the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine for emergency use.
Andrew Pollard, the head of the Oxford vaccine group, was one of those who 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 Kate Holton, Raissa Kasolowsky, Nick Macfie and Mike Collett-White