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‘Go for it,’ says 90-year-old who got world’s first Pfizer Covid vaccine in UK
Margaret Keenan received the Pfizer-BioNTech shot at her local hospital in Coventry, central England, at 0631 GMT, a week before she turns 91, according to Reuters.
The 90-year-old woman who became the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine outside of a trial in Britain on Tuesday, told others to “go for it” to beat the devastating disease.
Margaret Keenan received the Pfizer-BioNTech shot at her local hospital in Coventry, central England, at 0631 GMT, a week before she turns 91, according to Reuters.
She received the shot in her left arm from nurse May Parsons, who has worked in Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) for 24 years, the agency reported.
“I say go for it, go for it because it’s free and it’s the best thing that has ever happened,” Keenan said. “If I can do it, well, so can you,” she added.
Keenan is seen being wheeled out of the ward into a corridor, lined with nursing staff, to applaud and cheer.
The vaccine administered to Keenan, called BNT162b2, uses messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which makes use of a chemical messenger to instruct cells to make proteins that mimic the outer surface of the novel coronavirus, thereby rendering immunity against it.
Britain, the first Western country to start immunising its population, is also the worst-hit country in Europe with over 61,000 deaths. The country has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech shot. Each person requires two doses, and 40 million doses are enough to vaccinate 20 million people in the country of 67 million.
About 800,000 doses are expected to be available within the first week, with care home residents and carers, the elderly and health service workers the top priority to get them.
