LONDON (Reuters) – Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain and her husband Philip, both in their nineties, received vaccines against COVID-19, Buckingham Palace said on Saturday.
“The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh received the COVID-19 vaccines today,” the palace said in a statement. The Queen is 94 and Philip is 99, placing them in the priority category when launching the coronavirus vaccine in Britain.
A royal source said the vaccines were administered by a home doctor at the Queen’s residence in Windsor Castle, adding that she made the news public to contain any speculation.
With a new, highly transmissible variant of the virus emerging in Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has closed the economy and is launching vaccines in an attempt to stem the spread of the pandemic.
The government plans to vaccinate the elderly, the vulnerable and the frontline workers – about 15 million people – by mid-February, to ease a new rigid block imposed after an increase in cases in daily records.
Britain has the fifth highest number of official deaths from COVID-19 at almost 80,000, and 1,325 deaths reported in 28 days from a positive test on Friday exceeded the previous daily record number of last April.
Andy Bruce and Michael Holden reporting; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Ros Russell