U.K. Begins Rollout of Pfizer’s Covid-19 Vaccine in a First for the West

CARDIFF, Wales—The U.K. grew to become the to start with Western nation to start distributing a Covid-19 vaccine to its populace, rolling out a mass inoculation application that could give a template for other countries, which includes the U.S., of the practicalities and prospective pitfalls of vaccinating at velocity and scale.

Fewer than a 7 days immediately after Britain granted unexpected emergency-use authorization for the two-dose vaccine formulated by Pfizer Inc. and Germany’s BioNTech SE , the to start with men and women started to obtain it throughout the U.K. on Tuesday.

Those in excess of eighty yrs previous, nursing-house staff and other higher-chance wellness-care staff members had been entrance of the line: a group estimated to amount 6 million. The rollout is getting paid out for by the U.K.’s point out-funded National Wellness Company and modeled on its yearly flu-vaccination marketing campaign.

Ninety-yr-previous Maggie Keenan was the to start with to obtain the initial dose as portion of the application, according to the NHS.

“It’s historical past and the ideal thing which is at any time occurred. If I can do it, so can you,” she reported at College Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire, central England, immediately after receiving the shot.