The first patient in the UK received the vaccine from Oxford University / AstraZeneca.
Brian William Pinker, 82, was shot on Monday morning at Churchill Hospital in Oxford.
“I am very pleased to receive the Covid vaccine today and very proud that it was invented in Oxford,” he said.
“The vaccine is everything for me, for me it is the only way to return to normal life. This virus is terrible, isn’t it? “
Pinker said he learned on Saturday that he would be vaccinated and was told he would be the first patient. “It took me long enough to be a star,” he said.
The launch of the AstraZeneca vaccine began today in the United Kingdom and the country’s health secretary described it as a “real turning point” as Covid-19 cases continue to increase in parts of the country.
Chief Nurse Sam Foster, who administered the vaccine, said: “It was a real privilege to be able to deliver the first Oxford vaccine to Churchill Hospital here in Oxford, just a few hundred meters from where it was developed.”
Pinker is a retired maintenance manager who does dialysis for kidney disease at the hospital. Others should also be vaccinated because “it is a no-brainer,” he said.
“Today’s nurses, doctors and staff were brilliant and now I can really hope to celebrate my 48th wedding anniversary with my wife Shirley later this year.”
The NHS is the first health service in the world to implant the AstraZeneca vaccine and is the only approved one that can be stored at refrigerator temperature. The first vaccinations will be delivered to a small number of hospitals in the early days for surveillance purposes, as is standard practice, before most supplies are sent to more GP-led services later in the week, NHS England said in a statement. communicated.