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An 82-year-old man has become the first person in the world to receive the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine since it was approved for use in the UK.
Brian Pinker, a Churchill Hospital patient on dialysis for kidney disease, was the first to receive the injection Monday morning.
The retired maintenance manager said he was looking forward to spending his 48th wedding anniversary with his wife Shirley in February.
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The second person to take the hit was Trevor Cowlett, an 88-year-old music teacher, and the third was Professor Andrew Pollard.
Around 53,000 doses of the Oxford University jab are initially being rolled out in six hospital trusts in Oxford, Sussex, Lancashire, Warwickshire and two in London.
Most of the supplies will then be sent to more than 700 services and family-run care homes.
Trevor Cowlett being vaccinated
The government expects to deliver tens of millions of doses in months, with the reported goal of administering two million a week.
It is the second vaccine to be implemented in the UK, after the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine was first administered to grandmother of four Margaret Keenan December 8th.
Mr Cowlett is an 88 year old music teacher
Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Sky News it was a “great British success story, starting today.”
But he said that fighting the virus was “a massive national effort.”
“It’s not about blaming, it’s about how collectively, as a society, we keep this in check for the next several months … until vaccines can make us safe,” he said.
“Obviously we have very positive news this morning from Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine started to roll out, it’s a triumph for British science that we managed to get to where we are, but this new variant makes it much more difficult to control the virus in the meantime. “
He added that as of today, there were “700 vaccination sites open across the UK, and by the end of the week it is expected to be over 1,000.”
Hancock had previously said: “This is a pivotal moment in our fight against this terrible virus and I hope it will give everyone renewed hope that the end of this pandemic is in sight.”
So far, around a million people in the UK have received the other approved vaccine, which is produced by Pfizer and BioNTech.
Professor Andrew Pollard is being vaccinated
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which was approved on December 30, it is cheaper and easier to store and transport.
In a change from practices in the US and elsewhere, Britain plans to give patients a second dose of both vaccines within 12 weeks of the first injection rather than within 21 days, to speed up immunizations in as many people as quickly as possible.
The government’s deputy chief medical officer, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, said Sunday that the decision is “the right thing to do for the nation as a whole.”
The UK has obtained 100 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine as part of its contract, enough for the majority of the population.
The spread of the new, more transmissible variant has forced the government to prioritize giving the first dose of the vaccine to as many people as possible, rather than focusing on giving the two full doses to a smaller group of people first.
After his jab, Mr. Pinker said: “I am very happy to get the COVID vaccine today and really proud that it was invented in Oxford. The nurses, doctors and staff today have all been brilliant and now I can really look forward to celebrating my 48th wedding anniversary with my wife Shirley later this year. “
Brian Pinker was the first person to receive the vaccine.
Sam Foster, director of nursing at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, who administered the vaccine to Mr. Pinker, said: “It was a real privilege to be able to administer the first Oxford vaccine at Churchill Hospital here in Oxford, just a few hundred meters from where it developed.
“We hope to vaccinate many more patients and health and care personnel with the Oxford vaccine in the coming weeks, which will make a huge difference to the people who live in the communities we serve and the staff who care for them in our hospitals.” .
The UK is currently battling an acute outbreak, recording more than 50,000 new COVID-19 infections a day for the past six days. On Sunday, another 54,990 cases and 454 virus-related deaths – raising the official number of deaths from the virus to 75,024.
