UK Begins Distribution of Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine

The United Kingdom has begun distributing the world’s first fully tested, clinically authorized COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine. The first recipient was a 90-year-old woman named Margaret Keenan, followed by an 81-year-old man named William Shakespeare. The vaccine, developed by American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and German biotechnology company BioNTech, was approved by British authorities in early December. The U.K. has so far received enough doses for 400,000 people, and will prioritize distribution to health workers and people older than 80. The FDA is expected to make a decision on U.S. vaccine authorization later this week. Coverage was mostly balanced on all sides, with some coverage using a variation of the phrase “first in the Western world” to account for the existence of other non-approved vaccines, such as the vaccine distributed by China’s Sinopharm. Coverage from left-rated outlets generally expressed more confidence in the vaccine’s safety than coverage from right-rated outlets.