UK queen, 94, is near top of queue for COVID-19 jab

Reuters

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II will receive the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine within weeks, reports said on Sunday, as the biggest immunization program in UK history begins this week.

The monarch, 94, and her 99-year-old husband Prince Philip are in line to get the jab early in the rollout, which gets underway on Tuesday, due to their age and will not receive preferential treatment, several newspapers reported.

Britain’s most senior royals will “let it be known” they have been given the inoculations “as a powerful counter to the anti-vaccination movement,” the Sunday Times said.

The Mail on Sunday added they hope “to encourage more people to take up the vital jab.”

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman declined to comment on the vaccination reports, noting “medical decisions are taken personally.”

Britain became the first country in the world last Wednesday to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for COVID-19, and health officials have already drawn up criteria based on age and vulnerability to decide who will receive it first.

Britain has pre-ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in total, and is set to receive an initial batch of 800,000 to kickstart tomorrow’s rollout.

Elderly-care home residents and their carers will be the very first in line, followed by those aged 80 and over and frontline health and care staff.

Other elderly people and the clinically extremely vulnerable will be next, with the rest of the population then prioritized by age.