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William Shakespeare from Warwickshire in England was one of the first people to receive the newly approved COVID-19 vaccine outside a clinical trial on Tuesday.
The 81-year-old had the injection at University Hospital Coventry on Tuesday, 20 miles from Stratford-Upon-Avon, the birthplace of his namesake, England’s greatest dramatist and poet.
Shakespeare’s shot inspired Twitter users, who joked “The Taming of the Flu”, “The Two Gentlemen of Corona”. Some asked if Margaret Keenan was patient 1A, then was Shakespeare “Patient 2B or not 2B?”.
On the other hand, Margaret Keenan, the 90-year-old grandmother who became the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine outside of a trial in Britain on Tuesday, has a message for others: “go for it” to beat the devastating disease.
An early riser, Keenan, from Northern Ireland, received the Pfizer-BioNTech shot at her local hospital in Coventry, central England, at 0631 GMT, a week before she turns 91.
A video showed her being wheeled out of the ward while nursing staff clad in protective gear lined the corridor to applaud and cheer, an echo of moving video clips released through the year when COVID-19 survivors left hospital.
“I say go for it, go for it because it’s free and it’s the best thing that has ever happened,” Keenan told reporters as cameras flashed and television reporters asked questions.
“If I can do it, well, so can you,” she told any doubters.
Britain is the first Western country to start immunising its population in what has been hailed as a turning point in the battle to defeat the disease. It is the worst-hit country in Europe with more than 61,000 deaths.