Boris Johnson welcomes rollout of COVID vaccine program, says 'Will beat this together'

British PM Boris Johnson on December 8 welcomed the start of the coronavirus vaccine program and thanked the health workers, scientists and people who had volunteered for testing. While taking to Twitter, Johnson urged the public to remain vigilant and continue to follow the precautionary measures over the winter months ahead. “We will beat this together,” he reiterated in his social media post. 

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The NHS is set to create history by undertaking the biggest immunisation campaign at 50 hospital hubs in the UK. The programme will ramp up further in the coming weeks as the first set of doses arrives from Pfizer’s manufacturing site in Belgium. Since the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine got approval from UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) last week, the NHS workers have been working around the clock to manage the large-scale logistical challenge of rolling out the vaccine.

According to NHS England, on Tuesday Margaret Keenan, a 90-year-old woman from Northern Ireland became the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer’BioNTech vaccine. While speaking to BBC, Keenan said that she felt “so privileged” to receive the jab at University Hospital, Coventry. She called it the best early birthday present and added that now she can finally look forward to spending time with her family and friends in the new year. 

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UK’s vaccination drive 

Meanwhile, the British regulator, MHRA has said that Pfizer-BioNTech’s mRNA-based vaccine that has shown 95 per cent efficacy, is safe for mass roll out with immunisations in the country starting among the high priority groups. Britain has reportedly already placed an order of 40 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine to provide the double-dose immunisation to at least 20 million people. 

The Pfizer/BionTech formula is an mRNA vaccine that uses a tiny fragment of genetic code from the virus to teach the body how to fight Covid-19 and build its immunity.  It is delivered in two doses, 21 days apart and has shown a strong immunity response kicking in seven days after administering the second dose.  The Pfizer vaccine needs to be stored at -70C before being defrosted and can only be moved four times within that temperature before being used.

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