A 90-year-old woman has become the first person to be given a Covid jab as part of the mass vaccination programme being rolled out across the UK. Margaret Keenan, who turns 91 next week, said it was the “best early birthday present”. She was given the injection at 06:31 GMT – the first of 800,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine that will be given in the coming weeks.
Ms Keenan, a former jewellery shop assistant, originally from Enniskillen, 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.”
Britain began rolling out the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech on Tuesday, the first Western country to start vaccinating its general population in what was hailed as a decisive watershed in defeating the coronavirus.
