LONDON (Reuters) – Britain on Monday vaccinated its population with the COVID-19 shot developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, which points to a scientific “triumph” that puts it on the forefront of the West to fight the virus te ent.
Britain, which is in a hurry to vaccinate its population faster than the United States and the rest of Europe, is the first country to adopt the Oxford / AstraZeneca shot, although Russia and China have vaccinated their citizens for months.
Less than a month after Britain became the first country in the world to develop the vaccine developed by Pfizer, and the German BioNTech, dialysis patient Brian Pinker (82) was the first to take the Oxford / AstraZeneca shot around 07:30 GMT available.
“I’m so glad I’m getting the COVID vaccine today and am very proud to have invented it in Oxford,” said Pinker, a retired maintenance manager who underwent dialysis for kidney disease, just a few hundred yards from where developed.
Pinker is looking forward to celebrating his 48th wedding anniversary with wife Shirley in February.
“The nurses, doctors and staff of today were all brilliant,” he said.
Britain, which is facing the sixth worst death toll in the world and one of the worst economic hits of the COVID crisis, has already put more than a million COVID-19 vaccines in its arms – more than the rest of Europe , said Health Minister Matt Hancock.
“It’s a triumph of British science that we were able to get where we are,” Hancock told Sky. “In the beginning, 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 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.
But Israel is the world leader: more than a tenth of its population had a vaccine and Israel now gives more than 150,000 doses a day.
ENTWEDLOOP
Britain has become the first Western country to approve and roll out a COVID-19 vaccine, betting that the continued existence of a vaccine will enable it to leave the COVID crisis earlier than other countries, Johnson said. provides a rare opportunity to shine.
Other Western countries have taken a longer and more cautious approach to vaccine deployment, although Russia and China have been vaccinating their citizens for months with various vaccines still undergoing late trials.
On December 31, China approved its first COVID-19 vaccine for general use, a survey developed by a subsidiary of state-subsidized pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm. The company said it is 79% effective against the virus.
Russia said on November 24 that its Sputnik V vaccine, developed by the Gamaleya Institute, was 91.4% effective, based on interim results in the late stages. It began vaccinations in August and has so far vaccinated more than 100,000 people.
India approved the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine on Sunday for emergency use.
One dose of warning was introduced by ITV political editor Robert Peston, who said scientists were not confident that COVID-19 vaccines would work on a new variant of the coronavirus found in South Africa.
COVID CRISIS
More than 75,000 people in the UK have died from COVID, although a larger scale brings the death toll to 82,624, and cases are rising sharply, fueled by a separate variant of the virus.
Johnson said Sunday that stricter restrictions are likely to be imposed, even with millions of citizens already living below the strictest level of rules.
England is currently divided into four different restriction levels, depending on the prevalence of the virus, and Hancock said the rules in certain parts of the country in Level 3 clearly do not work.
Asked if the government was considering introducing a new national closure, Hancock said: “We do not exclude anything.”
The spread of the variant virus has also forced the government to change its approach to vaccination. Britain now gives priority to getting a first dose of a vaccine to as many people as possible over giving second doses. Delaying the spread of second shots can help stretch the supply.
Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group and chief investigator after the trial of the shot, also received the vaccine.
“This is a very critical moment. “We are about to be overwhelmed by this disease,” he told BBC TV. “I think it gives us some hope, but I think there are still some difficult weeks ahead of us.”
Writing by William James and Guy Faulconbridge; Edited by Susan Fenton, Kate Holton, Raissa Kasolowsky and Nick Macfie