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Among the first people to receive the Covid-19 vaccine was a man whose wife had died just a week earlier after contracting the virus.
Rae Whitehead, 79, died on December 1, days after he tested positive for coronavirus at his East Yorkshire nursing home.
On Tuesday, just seven days later, the NHS began its mass vaccination program across the UK and her widower, Edward, 84, became one of the first in the world to be hit at the James Cook hospital. from Middlesbrough.
The couple’s son, Dr. David Whitehead, 49, a consultant ENT surgeon in Middlesbrough, said he felt “potential relief” that his father had been vaccinated, but “heartbreak” that his mother could not be saved.
He told the Palestinian Authority news agency: “My father and I are deeply saddened that if we had not put my mother in a nursing home… maybe she would be alive today and could have received the vaccine today.
“His life escaped him, a week later the vaccine is being launched.”
David Whitehead said his mother, who had worked as a civil servant before having children, had spent her life “taking care of us and the family,” adding that “she was dedicated to us.”
He said that he too had contracted the coronavirus in March and suffered from a high fever and a “feeling as if my head was boiling.”
He described the beginning of the NHS ‘gradual rollout of the vaccine as “a great day” and said he was proud.
“This is the great thing about the NHS,” he said. “Because it’s nationalized, we have the ability and the power to have these interactions with the big pharmaceutical companies to make this kind of thing happen.
“I am quite proud to have been able to pass it, a vaccine from a trial, so quickly. It’s a great day and I think it will probably protect a lot of people. “
On Tuesday, Margaret Keenan, 90, of Coventry, became the world’s first patient to receive the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine after its approval in the UK, marking the start of a historic mass vaccination program. , the largest in the 73-year history.
