90 year old margaret keenan well she'll
go down in
history she's become the first person in
the world to receive the
pfizer vaccine against covid19 outside
trial conditions these pictures are
coming into us live
now i beg your pardon we're coming in to
us now this is actually about
uh 25 30 minutes ago as uh
she took that first injection she's
at the university hospital in coventry
that's in the english midlands
the british prime minister boris
johnson's called this a huge step
forward
in the fight against covid19 it has led
to the death of more than 60
000 people across the uk
and the majority of those are the
elderly which is why the priority
is very much focused on uh those
elder citizens in the united kingdom
uh yeah quite a moment a round of
applause margaret takes
the jab and that is the first of two of
course she will have to
have a second vaccination in three weeks
time
our health correspondent catherine burns
has the uk perspective she is outside
university hospital
in coventry the government's calling it
v day and it is the biggest vaccine
rollout in our history
so here in coventry is one of 70
hospitals across the uk
that are going to start injecting the
first patients today
now we've ordered about 40 million doses
of this we don't have that yet though
right now we're looking at about 800
000 and that's going to go up to about 4
million before christmas so not
everyone that needs this injection is
going to get it immediately they're
going to start off in the hospitals
for example with inpatients who are
already in hospital and about to go home
or people who are coming in for tests
they'll also invite some care home
staff in and maybe some other vulnerable
over 80s and then if there's any
leftover
over at the end of each day they will
give those to the most vulnerable
frontline nhs staff the ones who would
be at the most
risk of getting sick if they got this
yeah there we are well uh our reporter
paul hawkins is with me now i mean this
is an initial 800 000
batch isn't it it's the first batch so
the elderly get it
yeah 800 000 uh it initially goes to the
elderly it goes to those with underlying
health conditions and then it's
gradually rolled out across the uk 40
million doses in total
the uk government has ordered so when
you do the math that's 20 million people
roughly around a third
of the uk population um as you
as you mentioned everyone who gets this
vaccine they get two doses
three weeks apart the immunity begins
after you've had the first dose and then
it
builds to maximum immunity seven days
after
the second jab so so
that's kind of how it works side effects
they're mild
95 percent effective it's not yet long
known how long the immunity lasts
that's quite key and we don't know
whether it stops people from actually
passing on the virus
yeah because this is the first time in
the world it's been rolled out yeah it's
interesting seeing it
actually happening after all this time
as well isn't it um
i suppose we've got to look at the the
scale in which this can be
opened up quickly because as a vaccine
pool
it's held at very low temperatures they
have to administer it
in hospitals rather than a doctor taking
it off in his bag and carrying it around
the town sort of thing
yeah minus 70 so at the moment it's
arrived in refrigerated
uh well huge refrigerators effectively
big containers
shipped into the hospitals that's where
it's going to be started 70 hospital
hubs across the country and then as as
they try to work out the logistics of
transporting that virus at a really low
temperature
it'll get rolled out in gp surgeries in
care homes
we're talking about 30 000 people being
recruited by the nhs
uh over over the coming months
sports stadiums conference centers as
well being used as vaccination hubs so
at the moment they're going to for
targeting the over 50s and then well
into next year we'll start seeing phase
two which is under 50s
paul that's really helpful thank you
very much for that um
i'm joined now by professor philip clark
who is director of the
health economics research center at the
university of oxford and his teams have
been working on a
framework really on how to allocate the
vaccine itself
as i say joins me from oxford now philip
thanks very much indeed
for your time um we've just seen
margaret keenan the very first uh to
receive the vaccine
um and not surprisingly it's targeted
initially at the uh
at the oldest and the ones we see is the
most vulnerable
yes yes uh david the idea i think of the
vaccination strategy
in the uk is to keep it simple and
basically start off with age with the
oldest
because people's risk of getting covered
and also perhaps
dying of covert doubles about every five
years so if you
start with someone like margaret who's
in the 90s you're likely to reduce
the mortality from this disease in in
the most rapid way
yeah and it's an overwhelming increase
isn't it as the as the years go by if
you like nonetheless
it might not be the only approach and i
think
would you perhaps see the idea of
vaccinating all the maybe the health
service staff as
a more appropriate first step well
different countries are trying different
strategies certainly in the uk
uh healthcare workers are getting a high
priority they're in the next group and
as well as social care workers
that makes a lot of sense both to
protect them
but also potentially to protect patients
if if it's able to reduce transmission
i suppose the question is uh what
potentially what are other countries
doing there is a variety of strategies
here so for example
uh russia uh has started vaccinating
with its sputnik vaccine and it's
uh vaccinating healthcare workers and
teachers so
i do think perhaps there needs to be a
discussion in all countries
about where these occupations that have
a lot of contact with the public will
fit in
alongside healthcare workers yeah i mean
obviously it's voluntary and
margaret was very ready to be vaccinated
there um but we did hear earlier
uh phillip from los angeles from a
healthcare expert saying that actually
more than half of healthcare workers
there still feel uncomfortable about
this vaccine
and that's an issue of the speed again
with which it's been
processed well there's certainly been
rigorous testing both
of all of the vaccines in terms of both
its efficacy
and safety and of course it's now being
approved by regulators
i suppose also though these have been
developed at speed
but there is of course enormous benefit
i mean to the individual
but to the entire society from uh
getting
vaccinations rates up because it's the
one sure way to actually
bring about a you know reduction in
covert cases and
and going back to a sort of normal world
that we
were in this time last year and
hopefully we'll return to by this time
next year well you make a very good
point don't you just watching
one lady being vaccinated is a it's a
symbol really of what an extraordinarily
challenging nine months at least maybe a
full year we've been through
i mean this is a big day isn't it
absolutely
and i think it is a vaccination is
something where
by taking a vaccine one is benefiting
everybody in the society so migrant by
taking the bet
her vaccine is actually benefiting me
because uh
with an infectious disease it reduces my
chance of getting a vaccine so it is
something
i think as a society we need to make
decisions about
but and and it is the one way we can
actually defeat
this virus yeah