LONDON (Reuters) – Britain began to vaccinate its population with the COVID-19 shot developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca on Monday, praising a scientific “triumph” that puts it at the forefront of the West at vaccinating against the virus.
Britain, which is rushing to vaccinate its population faster than the United States and the rest of Europe, is the first country to roll out the Oxford / AstraZeneca shot, even though Russia and China have been vaccinating their citizens for months.
Just under a month since Britain became the first country in the world to market the Pfizer-developed vaccine and German BioNTech, dialysis patient Brian Pinker, 82, was the first to receive the Oxford / AstraZeneca injection at 7:30 a.m. GMT.
“I’m so happy to get the COVID vaccine today and I’m really proud that it’s a vaccine invented in Oxford,” said Pinker, a retired maintenance manager who has undergone dialysis for kidney disease, just a few hundred meters from where the vaccine was developed.
Pinker was looking forward to celebrating his 48th wedding anniversary with wife Shirley in February.
“Today’s nurses, doctors and staff have all been brilliant,” he said.
Britain, grappling with the world’s sixth worst death toll and one of the worst economic blows from the COVID crisis, has already thrown more than a million COVID-19 vaccines into its fray – more than the rest of Europe put together , said health secretary 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.”
Prime Minister Boris 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.
But Israel is the world leader: More than a tenth of the population has had a vaccine and Israel now administers more than 150,000 doses per day.
VACCINE RACE
Britain became the first Western country to approve and roll out a COVID-19 vaccine, betting that getting ahead with a vaccine could get it out of the COVID crisis earlier than other countries, giving Johnson a rare chance to to shine.
Other Western countries have taken a longer and more cautious approach to vaccine rollout, although Russia and China have been inoculating their citizens for months with several vaccines that are still being tested at a late stage.
On December 31, China approved its first general-purpose COVID-19 vaccine, an injection developed by an affiliate of state-backed pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm. The company said it is 79% effective against the virus.
Russia said on Nov. 24 that its Sputnik V vaccine, developed by the Gamaleya Institute, was 91.4% effective based on late-stage interim test results. It started with vaccinations in August and has vaccinated more than 100,000 people to date.
India approved the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine for emergency use on Sunday.
A dose of caution was introduced by ITV political editor Robert Peston, who said scientists are not entirely sure that COVID-19 vaccines will 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 broader measure puts the death toll at 82,624 and the number of cases is soaring, fueled by a single variant of the virus.
Johnson said on Sunday that tougher restrictions would likely be introduced even as millions of citizens already live under the strictest rules.
England is currently divided into four different levels of restrictions depending on the prevalence of the virus, and Hancock said the Level 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.”
The spread of the variant virus has also forced the government to change its approach to vaccination. Britain is now prioritizing giving the first dose of a vaccine to as many people as possible over giving a second dose. Delaying the distribution of second shots should help stretch the offer.
Andrew Pollard, the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group and lead investigator on the shot trial, also received the vaccine.
“This is a really critical moment. We are about to be overwhelmed by this disease, ”he told BBC TV. “I think it gives us a little bit of hope, but I think we have some tough weeks ahead of us.”
Written by William James and Guy Faulconbridge; Edited by Susan Fenton, Kate Holton, Raissa Kasolowsky and Nick Macfie