Watch Margaret Keenan Get the First Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine
Watch 90-Year-Old Margaret Keenan Become the First Person to Get Pfizer's COVID Vaccine
On 8 Dec., 90-year-old former jewellery-shop assistant Margaret Keenan from Coventry, donning a Christmas shirt, received the very first Pfizer and Biotech COVID-19 vaccine delivered by the NHS. This made her the first person in the world to get a fully tested and authorised coronavirus vaccine outside of clinical trials, The New York Times reported. Keenan's vaccination comes just six days after the UK government approved emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine on 2 Dec.
"I feel so privileged to be the first person vaccinated against COVID-19," Keenan said, according to an NHS news release. "It's the best early birthday present I could wish for." She turns 91 next week!
"It's the best thing that's ever happened at the moment."
Keenan, originally from Northern Ireland, has two children and four grandchildren, and she told Good Morning Britain when asked what she would say to people having second thoughts about a vaccine, "I say go for it. Go for it because it's free, and it's the best thing that's ever happened at the moment, so do please go for it." The second person to get the vaccine? An 81-year-old man named William Shakespeare.
In the video above, you'll see interviews with Keenan, as well as NHS nurse May Parsons, who delivered the first Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. You'll also see Keenan get the actual dose in her arm and hospital staff cheering her on as she's wheeled down the hallway afterward. She will get the second dose in 21 days.
