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 | | Margaret Keenan, 90, on Tuesday became the first patient in Britain to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine.Pool photo by Jacob King |
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What the start of a vaccine rollout looks like |
 | | A patient receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 in London on Tuesday.Pool photo by Victoria Jones |
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At 6:31 a.m. today in Britain, Margaret Keenan, a 90-year-old former jewelry shop assistant, pulled up the sleeve of her “Merry Christmas” T-shirt and was injected with a coronavirus vaccine — kicking off the world’s first campaign to deliver a fully tested vaccine against Covid-19. |
In what Britons are calling V Day, the National Health Service began giving out shots of the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech today in the country’s most difficult mass vaccination program in its history, my colleague Benjamin Mueller wrote. Hospitals were given pizza-box-like trays of 975 doses each, which they stored in ultracold freezers, before defrosting them and injecting them into the arms of Britons. |
 | | Ultracold freezers containing the coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday at the Louisa Jordan Hospital in Glasgow.Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images |
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Ms. Keenan, who said she felt “privileged” to be the first person vaccinated, was followed by — wait for it — William Shakespeare. (Seriously.) For the other early recipients — older Britons and hundreds of doctors and nurses — the injections opened a door to a post-pandemic life, and they spoke of plans for international travel, rescheduled wedding anniversaries and bus trips to the seaside. |
The doses were delivered inside 50 hospital vaccination facilities by some health workers who had spent months treating Covid patients. One health worker cried upon getting her shot. For the most part, people said they had felt no more pain than they had experienced from any other injection, and they were asked to sit for 15 minutes to make sure nothing went wrong. |
 | | People waited through 15 minutes of observation after receiving the vaccine in Cardiff, Wales.Andrew Testa for The New York Times |
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The country has only enough doses now for about 400,000 people, a tiny portion of its population of 67 million. It will be months before shots have been given to enough Britons to allow life to start returning to normal. |
In an early sign of hesitancy over vaccines that could complicate efforts, some Britons who were eligible for the Pfizer shot said that they did not want it. |
“There was a sense that this was a big moment for them personally, for the country at large, and sort of for humanity,” Megan told me. “At the end of the day, a lot of things haven’t changed for most of us. But certainly for a few thousand people across the U.K. tonight, their lives are different.” |
 | | Josephine Faleye, 80, received her vaccine on Tuesday in London.Pool photo by Jack Hill |
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- Scientists say that even if you have been vaccinated, you still need to wear a mask. While the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna seem good at preventing illness, we don’t yet know if they stop people from becoming infected and spreading the virus.
- Does the vaccine shot hurt? Will it cause infertility? We answered some common questions about the vaccine.
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One pandemic, two presidents |
The current president hailed a “monumental national achievement.” His successor grimly described a “mass casualty” event. My colleague, Michael Shear, who covers the White House, called it “a striking, split-screen moment, underscoring how differently the two men are approaching the worst public health crisis in 100 years.” |
Mr. Trump delivered a more upbeat message at an auditorium near the White House, where he packed in industry officials and members of his administration — most of them wearing masks — for a “vaccine summit” to celebrate the expected approval of a vaccine by the F.D.A. this week. |
Mr. Trump, who entered to a recording of “Hail to the Chief,” barely mentioned the surge in cases and deaths across the country in recent weeks and claimed credit for the vaccine. He also thanked his White House staff and advisers, though he pointedly excluded Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom Mr. Biden has tapped as his chief medical adviser and appeared remotely at the president-elect’s event. |
Speaking in Wilmington, Del., Mr. Biden painted a grim picture of the infections ravaging the nation. Even so, Mr. Biden pledged that during his first 100 days he would get 100 million “vaccine shots into the arms of the American people” and said he would set a “national priority” to get children back into school during that time period. He also asked Americans to wear masks during his first 100 days in office. |
- Hong Kong said it would once again ban restaurant dining after 6 p.m. and close all gyms and beauty salons to help curb a rise in virus cases, Reuters reported.
- Chile announced new measures for Santiago, the capital, this week that are meant to avoid a total lockdown. The new restrictions include a full lockdown on weekends and lesser limitations during the week.
- Officials in Barcelona said that four lions at the Barcelona Zoo had tested positive for the coronavirus. Two employees also tested positive. It is the second known instance involving large cats after several lions and tigers at the Bronx Zoo in New York tested positive in April.
- According to a new study, seven months after its arrival in the Amazon, the coronavirus has infected more than 70 percent of the population in the city of Manaus, in Brazil.
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What else we’re following |
- Dr. Anthony Fauci warned of “a really dark time for us” by mid-January and said that holiday gatherings should include fewer than 10 people, NPR reports.
- Many companies that furloughed workers in shutdowns stopped paying for health insurance.
- As some New York City school buildings reopen this week, many white families have flocked back to classrooms, while most families of color have chosen to learn from home indefinitely.
- After his co-workers became sick with Covid-19, a radiology technician at a hospital in rural Kansas was the only employee available to take X-rays, so he slept in an R.V. in the parking lot for more than a week, The Associated Press reports.
- Eighteen days after Erika Becerra, 33, gave birth, she died from Covid-19. Her brother said she had never gotten to hold her baby.
- In The Morning, The Times’s David Leonhardt explained how vaccines will be much less effective at preventing death and illness in 2021 if they are introduced into a population where the coronavirus is raging — as is now the case in the U.S.
- In “Family, Interrupted,” The Times explores how the pandemic has upended the lives of many American families. In this week’s entry, Monica Duffey, who has a developmental disability, spoke to her sister Maureen to ask the same question she has for years: “What day are you picking me up for Christmas?”
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2020 has been year three of my line-a-day diary. Since March it has been full of dire Covid milestones, illness among family and friends, anger at deniers, and mourning for the loss of normal life, vacations, and more. On Thanksgiving Day I said enough — and changed it to a gratitude journal. I wrote about how wonderful it was to share dinner with our two grown sons, albeit outside in 40 degrees. I’ve described beautiful sunsets, meeting exercise goals, relief that we will have a new mask-wearing presidential administration, and my thoughtful co-workers. I hope to stay positive until the vaccine is widely distributed and this crisis retreats — and maybe even beyond. — M.B. Lewis, Ann Arbor, Mich. |
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