CHEERS AND THEN TEARS
HANCOCK WELLS UP AS BRITS GET WORLD’S FIRST VACCINE JABS
A BRITISH grandmother aged 90 was applauded as she became the first person in the world to receive the new coronavirus vaccine after it was approved by regulators.
Margaret Keenan welcomed the ‘privilege’ of being injected with the Pfizer-Bio-NTech vaccine at University Hospital Coventry at 6.31am yesterday.
She was swiftly followed by fellow patient, William Shakespeare, 81, from Warwickshire just like his playwright namesake. It was all too much for health secretary Matt Hancock as he appeared to break down on what he called ‘V-day’.
As he watched footage of hospital staff clapping and cheering Mrs Keenan, he seemed to wipe away a tear during a live appearance on ITV’s Good Morning Britain and said: ‘It makes me proud to be British.’
Prime minister Boris Johnson, who watched patients receive the vaccine at Guy’s Hospital in London, hailed the Covid-19 vaccination programme as ‘a shot in the arm’ for the world.
Medics said it could be the beginning of the end of the pandemic. Seventy
hospitals across the UK have begun administering the Pfizer vaccine, which trial results found has a 90 per cent success rate in protecting against Covid-19.
The government has ordered 40million doses of the Pfizer jab – enough to vaccinate 20million people.
An order has also been placed for 100million doses of the version developed by Oxford university and AstraZeneca, which is still awaiting regulatory approval. An independent study has confirmed it is safe and up to 90 per cent effective if given as one-and-a-half doses.
There are 800,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in the first tranche, meaning 400,000 people will be vaccinated initially including about 5,000 yesterday – with GP surgeries expected to begin inoculating care-home residents from next week.
The first shot was administered by hospital matron May Parsons, who is originally from the Philippines.
She started to shake with nerves once she had given the injection.
Mrs Keenan, due to turn 91 next week, said: ‘I feel so privileged to be the first person vaccinated against Covid-19. It’s the best early birthday present I could wish for because it means I can finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends in the new year after being on my own for most of the year.
‘I can’t thank May and the NHS staff enough who have looked after me tremendously, and my advice to anyone offered the vaccine is to take it – if I can have it at 90, then you can have it too.’
Mr Shakespeare said he was ‘pleased’ to receive the jab, adding: ‘I need to say the staff at this hospital are wonderful.’
Footage of the pair being applauded at the hospital prompted an emotional response from Mr Hancock who said: ‘It’s been such a tough year for so many people and there’s William Shakespeare
putting it simply for everybody that we can get on with our lives.
‘There’s so much work gone into this – it makes me proud to be British.’
Dr Hari Shukla, 87 – who was on our front page yesterday – received his jab at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary followed by his wife Ranjan, 84.
He said: ‘The whole world is looking at us to see how things go – the way things have been organised has been absolutely wonderful.’ Lyn Wheeler, 81, of Bromley, south-east London, was the first patient to be given the jab at Guy’s when she was vaccinated in front of the prime minister – telling him: ‘It’s all for Britain.
‘I’m going for it because I feel there’s no other way forward – we can’t keep sitting in our houses.’
Mr Johnson said: ‘To all those who are scared, don’t be. You have seen Lyn take it, you have seen people take the vaccine this morning in large numbers – there’s nothing to be nervous about.’
While the vaccine would ‘ gradually make a huge, huge difference’, he warned: ‘We have not defeated this virus yet.’
NHS England’s medical director Prof Stephen Powis called it ‘a turning point in this pandemic’ and ‘the beginning of the end’. But he cautioned: ‘It’s not going to happen next week or next month – we still need to socially distance, we need to follow all those restrictions in place – but, in 2021, vaccination programmes will mean we can get back to normality.’
England’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance warned face coverings could still be recommended next winter because ‘we don’t know yet how good all the vaccines are going to be at preventing the transmission of the virus’.