Brian Parker, first to get Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine

rian Pinker, an 82-year-old retired maintenance manager, a dialysis patient, had the first Oxford AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine adminstered by nurse Sam Foster — rian Pinker, an 82-year-old retired maintenance manager, a dialysis patient, had the first Oxford AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine administered by nurse Sam Foster

Brian Pinker, an 82-year-old retired maintenance manager, a dialysis patient, had the first Oxford AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine at Oxford’s Churchill Hospital administered by chief Nurse Sam Foster at 7:30GMT. More than half a million doses of the vaccine are ready for use on Monday, 04 January 2021.

Matt Hancock, Health Secretary, described the occasion as a “ pivotal moment” in the UK’s fight against the virus, as vaccines will help curb infections which can then allow restrictions to be lifted.

However, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said regional restrictions in England are probably about to get even tougher” as the UK struggles to control a new, fast-spreading variant of the Covid-19 virus.

On Sunday over 54,000 new confirmed Covid-19 cases were recorded in the UK for the sixth day running,

Professor Stephen Powis, National medical director of NHS England said he hopes the country may be able to get back to “normal ways of life” by the summer. “Like everybody, I ‘am hoping that when we get into the spring and into the summer we will be able to get more back towards those normal ways of life, as there’s no doubt at the moment that infection rates are high, the NHS is under severe pressure, particularly in London and parts of the South East where the new variant has been accelerating in transmission. In the rest of the country we’re also seeing pressure and of course the new variant has begun to spread”.

He described the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine as a “remarkable scientific achievement.”