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* UK first to roll out AstraZeneca vaccine
* 82-year-old dialysis patient is first to get vaccine
* UK hails British scientific 'triumph'
* Johnson mulls tougher lockdown in England
* Concerns grow over South African variant
(Writes through)
By Guy Faulconbridge and Alistair Smout
LONDON, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Britain began vaccinating its
population with the COVID-19 shot developed by Oxford University
and AstraZeneca on Monday, touting a scientific
"triumph" that puts it at the vanguard of the West in
inoculating against the virus.
Britain, which is rushing to vaccinate its population faster
than the United States and the rest of Europe, is the first
country to roll out the Oxford/AstraZeneca shot though Russia
and China have been inoculating their citizens for months.
Just under a month since Britain became the first country in
the world to roll out the vaccine developed by Pfizer
and Germany's BioNTech, dialysis patient Brian Pinker, 82, was
first to get the Oxford/AstraZeneca shot at 0730 GMT.
"I am so pleased to be getting the COVID vaccine today and
really proud that it is one that was invented in Oxford,"
Pinker, a retired maintenance manager who has been having
dialysis for kidney disease, said just a few hundred metres from
where the vaccine was developed.
Pinker was looking forward to celebrating his 48th wedding
anniversary with wife Shirley in February.
"The nurses, doctors and staff today have all been
brilliant," he said.
Britain, grappling with the world's sixth worst death toll
and one of the worst economic hits from the COVID crisis, has
put more than a million COVID-19 vaccines into arms already -
more than the rest of Europe put together, Health Secretary Matt
Hancock said.
"That's a triumph of British science that we've managed to
get where we are," Hancock told Sky. "Right at the start, we saw
that the vaccine was the only way out long term."
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has secured 100
million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine which can be
stored at fridge temperatures between two to eight degrees,
making it easier to distribute than the Pfizer shot.
Six hospitals in England are administering the first of
around 530,000 doses Britain has ready. The programme will be
expanded to hundreds of other British sites in coming days, and
the government hopes it will deliver tens of millions of doses
within months.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it
had administered 4.2 million first doses of COVID-19 vaccines as
of Saturday morning and distributed 13.07 million doses.
But Israel is the world leader: more than a tenth of its
population have had a vaccine and Israel is now administering
more than 150,000 doses a day.
VACCINE RACE
Britain became the first Western country to approve and roll
out a COVID-19 vaccine, betting that getting ahead with a
vaccine will allow it to exit the COVID crisis earlier than
other countries, offering Johnson a rare opportunity to shine.
Other Western countries have taken a longer and more
cautious approach to rolling out vaccines, though Russia and
China have been inoculating their citizens for months with
several different vaccines still undergoing late-stage trials.
China on Dec. 31. approved its first COVID-19 vaccine for
general public use, a shot developed by an affiliate of
state-backed pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm. The
company said it is 79% effective against the virus.
Russia said on Nov. 24 its Sputnik V vaccine, developed by
the Gamaleya Institute, was 91.4% effective based on interim
late-stage trial results. It started vaccinations in August and
has inoculated more than 100,000 people so far.
India approved the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine on Sunday for
emergency use.
One dose of caution was introduced by ITV political editor
Robert Peston who said scientists are not fully confident that
COVID-19 vaccines will work on a new variant of the coronavirus
found in South Africa.
COVID CRISIS
More than 75,000 people in the United Kingdom have died from
COVID though a wider measure puts the death toll at 82,624 and
cases are rising sharply, fuelled by a separate variant of the
virus.
Johnson said on Sunday that tougher restrictions were likely
to be introduced, even with millions of citizens already living
under the strictest tier of rules.
England is currently divided into four different tiers of
restrictions, depending on the prevalence of the virus, and
Hancock said the rules in some parts of the country in Tier 3
were clearly not working.
Asked whether the government was considering imposing a new
national lockdown, Hancock said: "We don't rule anything out."
The spread of the variant virus has also forced the
government to change its approach to vaccination. Britain is now
prioritising getting a first dose of a vaccine to as many people
as possible over giving second doses. Delaying the distribution
of second shots should help stretch the supply.
Andrew Pollard, the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group and
chief investigator into the trial of the shot, also received the
vaccine.
"This is a really critical moment. We are at the point of
being overwhelmed by this disease," he told BBC TV. "I think it
gives us a bit of hope, but I think we've got some tough weeks
ahead."
(Writing by William James and Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by
Susan Fenton, Kate Holton, Raissa Kasolowsky and Nick Macfie)
