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* UK first to roll out AstraZeneca vaccine
* 82-year-old dialysis patient is first to get shot
* UK hails British scientific 'triumph'
* Johnson mulls tougher lockdown in England
* Concerns grow over South African variant
(Adds Prime Minister Johnson's comments)
By Alistair Smout and Guy Faulconbridge
LONDON, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Britain began vaccinating its
population with Oxford University and AstraZeneca's
COVID-19 shot on Monday in a world first, racing to give
protection to the elderly and vulnerable as a new surge of cases
threatened to overwhelm hospitals.
Britain touted a scientific "triumph" as dialysis patient
Brian Pinker, 82, became the first person to get the
Oxford/AstraZeneca shot outside of a trial.
As major powers eye the benefits of being first out of the
pandemic, Britain is rushing to vaccinate its population faster
than the United States and the rest of Europe, although Russia
and China have been inoculating their citizens for months.
Just under a month since Britain became the first country to
roll out the vaccine developed by Pfizer and Germany's
BioNTech, Pinker, who has kidney disease, received the
Oxford/AstraZeneca shot.
"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, said just a few hundred
metres from where the vaccine was developed.
Pinker said he was looking forward to celebrating his 48th
wedding anniversary with wife Shirley in February.
Britain, grappling with the world's sixth worst death toll
and one of the worst economic hits from the COVID crisis, has
seen a resurgence in cases to new daily highs.
It is prioritising getting a first dose of a vaccine to as
many people as possible over giving second doses, despite some
doctors and scientists expressing concern.
But two new variants of the coronavirus are complicating the
COVID-19 response and might force new national restrictions in
England.
Scientists are not fully confident that COVID-19 vaccines
will work on a variant found in South Africa, ITV political
editor Robert Peston said, while cases have also been fuelled by
a highly transmissible UK variant.
'TOUGH WEEKS TO COME'
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned of "tough, tough
weeks to come" and said new restrictions were forthcoming.
"If you look at the numbers, there's no question that we're
going to have to take tougher measures and we'll be announcing
those in due course," Johnson said on a visit to see health
workers receiving the Oxford vaccine.
More than 75,000 people in the United Kingdom have died from
COVID-19 within 28 days of a positive test, and millions in
England are already living under the strictest tier of
restrictions.
Since the rollout of the Pfizer vaccine started on Dec. 8,
Britain has administered more than a million COVID-19 vaccines -
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."
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.
More than a tenth of Israel's population have had a vaccine
and it and is now administering more than 150,000 doses a day.
NEW LOCKDOWN POSSIBLE
Britain became the first Western country to approve and roll
out a COVID-19 vaccine, although it is months behind Russia and
China. Others have taken a longer and more cautious approach.
Several different vaccines are still undergoing late-stage
trials.
India approved the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine on Sunday for
emergency use.
England is divided into four different tiers, 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."
Andrew Pollard, the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, also
received the vaccine on Monday.
"We are at the point of being overwhelmed by this disease,"
he told BBC TV. "I think it (the vaccine) gives us a bit of
hope, but I think we've got some tough weeks ahead."
(Writing by William James, Guy Faulconbridge and Alistair
Smout; Editing by Kate Holton, Raissa Kasolowsky, Nick Macfie
and Mike Collett-White)
