Covid vaccine: Oxford man, 82, first in world to get Oxford/AstraZeneca jab

An 82-year-old retired maintenance manager has become the first person in the world outside clinical trials to get the vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca.

Speaking after getting the jab at Oxford’s Churchill hospital at 7.30am, Brian Pinker, 82, said: “The vaccine means everything to me. To my mind, it’s the only way of getting back to normal life.”

Pinker, who is a dialysis patient from Oxford, said he was only told on Saturday that he would be getting the jab on Monday.

The government hailed the first injection outside clinical trials of the Oxford vaccine as a “pivotal moment” in the fight against the virus, but senior medics cautioned against overoptimism amid continuing alarm about record new cases.

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, said: “This is a pivotal moment in our fight against this awful virus and I hope it provides renewed hope to everybody that the end of this pandemic is in sight.”

The chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, urged the public not to get carried away. He tweeted: “Vaccines give us a route out in the medium term. The NHS is, however, under very considerable and rising pressure in the short term. We must all follow social distancing for now.”

Prof Andrew Pollard, the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group who was among others who also received the shot on Monday morning, echoed this caution. “It gives us a bit of hope, but I think we’ve got some tough weeks ahead,” he said.

He said that with record daily case numbers, the next few weeks would be a challenge despite the optimism provided by the distribution of Oxford’s vaccine.

“This is a really critical moment. We are at the point of being overwhelmed by this disease,” he said.

Boris Johnson, who watched health workers get the vaccine at London’s Royal Free hospital on Monday, has promised that tens of millions of people will be vaccinated by spring. Hancock admitted that only 530,000 doses of the vaccine were ready for use this week, but promised the distribution programme was being accelerated.

Speaking to the BBC, he said: “It’s a matter of getting the vaccine as soon as it’s manufactured, and then goes through the crucial safety checks, which obviously are very important and getting it into the NHS and delivered into people’s arms.”

Sam Foster, Churchill hospital’s chief nurse, who administered the first Oxford vaccine, said: “It was a huge privilege. There’s nothing more that the NHS wants to do now is to get this programme going at real scale across the NHS.”

NHS England’s medical director, Prof Stephen Powis, said: “The NHS’s biggest vaccination programme in history is off to a strong start, thanks to the tremendous efforts of NHS staff who have already delivered more than one million jabs.

“Throughout the pandemic their response has been phenomenal, from introducing world-leading treatments for coronavirus, which have saved patients’ lives as well as delivering the very first Covid-19 vaccines outside of a trial in a landmark moment in history, and now rolling out the new Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, chalking up another world first that will protect thousands more over the coming weeks.”Oxford University denied that Pollard, who is 55, had jumped the queue in getting the vaccine of the first day. It said: “In line with the JCVI’s priority list, any member of the Oxford University vaccine trials team who are frontline healthcare workers, will be eligible for vaccination. Prof Pollard had been waiting to receive a vaccination in line with this policy.”

Pollard said: “It was an incredibly proud moment for me to have received the actual vaccine that the University of Oxford and the AstraZeneca teams have worked so hard to make available to the UK and the world.

“As a paediatrician specialising in infections, I know how important it is that healthcare workers along with other priority groups are protected as soon as possible – a crucial role in defeating this terrible disease.”