Member of Parliament for the Cities of London & Westminster Nickie Aiken today hailed V-Day, vaccine day, as over eighties in the UK became amongst the first people in the world to receive a vaccine for COVID-19 outside of clinical trials. In the coming weeks, NHS frontline workers and carers will also begin to be immunised.
The government hopes that by vaccinating those at greatest risk from requiring hospital care to treat COVID-19 first, the pressure our NHS is under will be lower as rapidly as possible. Giving those that treat them protection too will also insure against staff shortages being caused by NHS staff having to go off sick with the virus.
Commenting Nickie said,
“It's V-Day, vaccine day. Margaret Keenan, age 90 was the first Brit to receive the COVID-19 vaccine this morning and now the vaccine programme is being rolled out for the over eighties across the country.
I would like to pay tribute to Kate Bingham and her team of the vaccine task force who've worked tirelessly to secure vaccines for us, and Britain is now the first country in the world to have a vaccine programme.
I'd also like to thank everybody in the NHS who have worked so tirelessly this year and now we'll be rolling out the vaccine programme.”
Nickie was also keen to warn against people becoming complacent affirming that it was crucial people continued to follow COVID restrictions.
“We can't take our foot off the accelerator just yet. We've got to ensure that we are continuing to adhere to the restrictions and ensuring that we do remain safe but there is now a huge bright light at the end of this very dark tunnel.”
For more information about the COVID vaccine, click here.
