LONDON (Reuters) – Britain began vaccinating its population with the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca’s COVID-19, shot on Monday, in a race to protect the elderly and vulnerable as a further increase of cases threatened to overload hospitals.
Against an increasingly dark backdrop of daily recorded cases, Britain proclaimed a scientific “triumph” when dialysis patient Brian Pinker, 82, became the first person to take Oxford / AstraZeneca out of a trial.
“I am delighted to receive the COVID vaccine today and very proud that it was invented in Oxford,” said Pinker, a retired maintenance manager, just a few hundred meters from where the vaccine was developed.
Britain, struggling with the sixth worst death toll in the world and one of the worst economic strikes in the COVID crisis, was the first country to launch the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech in Germany just under a month ago.
He is prioritizing administering a first dose of a vaccine to as many people as possible, rather than a second dose, although some doctors and scientists express concern.
Two new variants of the coronavirus are complicating the response of COVID-19 and Britain has seen a resurgence in cases of new daily peaks.
Scientists are not entirely confident that the COVID-19 vaccines will work on a variant found in South Africa, said ITV political editor Robert Peston, although the cases were also fueled by a highly transmissible variant from the UK.
The launch of AstraZeneca came when Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned of “difficult, difficult weeks to come” and said that new restrictions for England were to come.
“If you look at the numbers, there is no doubt that we will have to take tougher measures and we will announce them in due course,” Johnson said on a visit to see healthcare professionals getting the Oxford vaccine.
More than 75,000 people in the UK died of COVID-19 in 28 days after a positive test, and millions in England are already living under the strictest restrictions.
Going ahead of Johnson, Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon imposed the most severe blockade since last spring.
“It is no exaggeration to say that I am more concerned with the situation we face now than at any time since March,” she said.
TRIUMPH FOR SCIENCE
Since the launch of the Pfizer vaccine began on December 8, Britain has administered more than one million COVID-19 vaccines – more than the rest of Europe combined, said Health Secretary Matt Hancock, adding that it was a triumph. British science.
Johnson’s government has guaranteed 100 million doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine, which can be stored in refrigerator temperatures between two and eight degrees, making it easier to distribute than the Pfizer injection.
Six hospitals in England are administering the first of about 530,000 doses that Britain has prepared. The program will be expanded to hundreds of other British locations in the coming days, and the government expects it to deliver tens of millions of doses in a few months.
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they administered 4.2 million first doses of COVID-19 vaccines on Saturday morning and distributed 13.07 million doses.
More than a tenth of Israel’s population has already received a vaccine and is now administering more than 150,000 doses a day.
Germany and Denmark are studying the possibility of postponing the administration of a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine to make scarce supplies advance, following similar action from Britain last week.
Britain has become the first western country to approve and launch a COVID-19 vaccine, although it is months behind Russia and China that have vaccinated their citizens for months. Others have taken a longer and more cautious approach. Several different vaccines are still in the final testing phase.
India approved the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine on Sunday for emergency use.
Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, was one of those who received the vaccine on Monday.
“We are about to be oppressed by this disease,” he told BBC TV. “I think (the vaccine) gives us a little hope, but I think we have some difficult weeks ahead of us.”
Written by William James, Guy Faulconbridge and Alistair Smout; Editing by Kate Holton, Raissa Kasolowsky, Nick Macfie and Mike Collett-White