Britain is the first to roll out AstraZeneca footage in a race to stop the COVID surge

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain began to vaccinate its population with the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 shot down Monday in a world first, racing to provide protection for the elderly and the vulnerable as a new wave of cases threatened to hit hospitals. overwhelm.

Britain hailed a scientific “triumph” when dialysis patient Brian Pinker, 82, became the first person to receive the Oxford / AstraZeneca injection outside of a trial.

While major powers look at the benefits of being the first to emerge from the pandemic, Britain is rushing to vaccinate its people faster than the United States and the rest of Europe, even though Russia and China have been vaccinating their citizens for months.

Just under a month since Britain was the first country to introduce the vaccine developed by Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, Pinker, who has kidney disease, got the Oxford / AstraZeneca injection.

“I am so happy to be getting the COVID vaccine today and I am really proud that it is a vaccine invented in Oxford,” said Pinker, a retired maintenance manager, just a few hundred yards from where it was. vaccine was developed.

Pinker said he is looking forward to celebrating his 48th wedding anniversary with wife Shirley in February.

Britain, grappling with the world’s sixth worst death toll and one of the worst economic blows from the COVID crisis, has seen a resurgence in cases to new daily highs.

It prioritizes getting the first dose of a vaccine to as many people as possible over giving a second dose, despite some doctors and scientists raising concerns.

But two new variants of the coronavirus complicate the COVID-19 response and may enforce new national restrictions in England.

Scientists are not entirely sure that COVID-19 vaccines will work on a variant found in South Africa, ITV political editor Robert Peston said, while cases were also fueled by a highly transmissible British variant.

‘STRONG WEEKS TO COME’

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned of “tough, difficult weeks to come” and said new restrictions would come.

“If you look at the numbers, there is no question that we will have to take tougher measures and will announce them in due course,” Johnson said during a visit to health workers who received the Oxford vaccine.

More than 75,000 people in the UK have died from COVID-19 within 28 days of a positive test, and millions in England are already living under the strictest restrictions.

Since the introduction of the Pfizer vaccine on Dec. 8, Britain has administered more than a million COVID-19 vaccines – more than the rest of Europe put together, said Health Minister Matt Hancock.

“That’s a triumph of British science that we’ve managed to get to where we are today,” Hancock told Sky. “We saw from the start that the vaccine was the only way out in the long term.”

Johnson’s government has secured 100 million doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine, which can be stored at refrigerator temperatures between two and eight degrees, making it easier to distribute than the Pfizer vaccine.

Six hospitals in England are administering the first of approximately 530,000 doses that Britain has ready. The program will be expanded to hundreds of other UK sites in the coming days and the government hopes it will deliver tens of millions of doses within months.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had administered 4.2 million first doses of COVID-19 vaccines as of Saturday morning and dispensed 13.07 million doses.

More than a tenth of the Israeli population has had a vaccine, and it now administers more than 150,000 doses per day.

NEW LOCKDOWN POSSIBLE

Britain became the first Western country to approve and introduce a COVID-19 vaccine, although it is months behind Russia and China. Others have taken a longer and more careful approach. Several vaccines are still being tested at a late stage.

India approved the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine for emergency use on Sunday.

England is divided into four different tiers, depending on the prevalence of the virus, and Hancock said the Tier 3 rules were clearly not working in some parts of the country.

When asked if the government is considering imposing a new national lockdown, Hancock said, “We are not ruling out anything.”

Andrew Pollard, the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, also received the vaccine on Monday.

“We are about to be overwhelmed by this disease,” he told BBC TV. “I think it (the vaccine) gives us a little bit of hope, but I think we have some tough weeks ahead of us.”