Pfizer’s Vaccine Debuts in Britain as the World’s First Fully Tested Vaccine

12/08/2020

|

Benjamin Mueller | The New York Times

Britain has become the first nation to begin a mass inoculation campaign using a fully tested vaccine, kicking off a global effort to fight Covid-19. Doctors, nurses, certain people aged 80 or over and nursing home workers will be among the first to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Britain’s National Health Service delivered its first shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on Tuesday, opening a mass vaccination campaign with little precedent in modern medicine and making Britons the first people in the world to receive a clinically authorized, fully tested vaccine.

At 6:31 a.m. Tuesday, Margaret Keenan, 90, a former jewelry shop assistant, rolled up the sleeve of her “Merry Christmas” T-shirt to receive the first shot, and her image quickly became an emblem of the remarkable race to produce a vaccine and the global effort to end a pandemic that has killed 1.5 million people worldwide.

“I feel so privileged to be the first person vaccinated against Covid-19,” said Ms. Keenan, who lives in Coventry, in central England. “It means I can finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends in the new year after being on my own for most of the year.”

To read the full article, click here.