LONDON (Reuters) – Britain on Monday began chasing its population with the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 shot in a global first vaccination to provide protection to the elderly and vulnerable, as a new wave of cases threatens hospitals to overwhelm.
Britain has declared a scientific “triumph” as Brian Pinker (82) became the first person to receive the Oxford / AstraZeneca shot outside a trial with dialysis.
As the major powers see the benefits of the first out of the pandemic, Britain is storming in its population faster than the United States and the rest of Europe, although Russia and China have been vaccinating their citizens for months.
Just less than a month since Britain became the first country to develop the vaccine developed by Pfizer, and Germany’s BioNTech, Pinker, which has a kidney disease, got the shot from Oxford / AstraZeneca.
“I’m so glad I got the COVID vaccine today, and I’m very proud that it was invented in Oxford,” said Pinker, a retired maintenance manager, just a few hundred yards from where the vaccine was developed. , said.
Pinker said he is looking forward to celebrating his 48th wedding anniversary with wife Shirley in February.
Britain, struggling with the world’s sixth worst death toll and one of the worst economic hits of the COVID crisis, has a resurgence in cases to new daily highs.
It is the priority of giving a first dose of a vaccine to as many people as possible over the administration of second doses, despite the fact that some doctors and scientists express their concern about it.
But two new variants of the coronavirus complicate the COVID-19 response and could force new national restrictions in England.
Scientists are not confident that COVID-19 vaccines will work on a variant found in South Africa, said ITV political editor Robert Peston, while cases are also fueled by a highly transmissible British variant.
‘STRONG WEEKS TO COME’
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned of ‘difficult, difficult weeks ahead’, saying new restrictions are coming.
“If you look at the numbers, there is no doubt that we will have to take stricter measures, and we will announce it in due course,” Johnson said on a visit to health workers receiving the Oxford vaccine.
More than 75,000 people in the UK have died within a 28-day positive test of COVID-19, and millions in England are already living under the strictest level of restrictions.
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 put together, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said.
“It’s a triumph of British science that we were able to get where we are,” Hancock told Sky. “From the very beginning, we saw that the vaccine was the only long-term solution.”
Johnson’s government has obtained 100 million doses of Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine that can be stored at refrigerator temperatures between two and eight degrees, making it easier to disperse than the Pfizer shot.
Six hospitals in England give the first of about 530,000 doses Britain has prepared. The program will be expanded to hundreds of other UK websites in the coming days, and the government hopes to deliver tens of millions of doses within months.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it administered 4.2 million first-dose COVID-19 vaccines on 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.
NEW CLOSURE POSSIBLE
Britain has become the first Western country to approve and roll out a COVID-19 vaccine, although it is months behind Russia and China. Others took a longer and more cautious approach. Several different vaccines are still undergoing late stages.
India approved the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine on Sunday for emergency use.
England are divided into four different levels, depending on the presence of the virus, and Hancock said the rules in some parts of the country in Tier 3 clearly do not work.
Asked if the government was considering introducing a new national closure, Hancock said: “We do not exclude anything.”
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 it (the vaccine) gives us some hope, but I think we have some difficult weeks ahead.”
Writing by William James, Guy Faulconbridge and Alistair Smout; Edited by Kate Holton, Raissa Kasolowsky, Nick Macfie and Mike Collett-White