90-Year-Old English Woman Is the First to Receive a COVID-19 Vaccine
- Published Dec 08, 2020
A 90-year-old woman in the United Kingdom has been given the first immunization of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.
Margaret Keenan received the shot early Tuesday morning in Coventry, The Guardian reports.
The vaccine has been approved in the United Kingdom and will now be administered at some 50 hospitals around the country. The first ones to receive the vaccine will be patients aged 80 and over already under hospital care as outpatients and those aged 80 and over who are being discharged following a hospital stay.
Keenan said it was a “privilege” to be the first to get the vaccine. She turns 91 next week.
“I feel so privileged to be the first person vaccinated against COVID-19, it’s the best early birthday present I could wish for because it means I can finally look forward to spending time with my family and friends in the new year after being on my own for most of the year,” she said.
Keenan has a daughter, a son and four grandchildren.
“I can’t thank (Nurse) May and the NHS staff enough who have looked after me tremendously, and my advice to anyone offered the vaccine is to take it – if I can have it at 90 then you can have it too,” she said.
May Parsons has worked for the NHS for 24 years.
“I’m just glad that I’m able to play a part in this historic day. The last few months have been tough for all of us working in the NHS, but now it feels like there is light at the end of the tunnel,” she said.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson also released a statement about the first immunization, thanking the people who helped make the vaccine possible.
“We will beat this together,” he said, calling the moment Keenan received her shot as “a triumph of science and human ingenuity.”
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Matthew Horwood/Stringer
Amanda Casanova is a writer living in Dallas, Texas. She has covered news for ChristianHeadlines.com since 2014. She has also contributed to The Houston Chronicle, U.S. News and World Report and IBelieve.com. She blogs at The Migraine Runner.
