Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, husband to get Covid-19 vaccine ‘in weeks’

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II will receive the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine within weeks, after UK regulators granted emergency approval and the world’s first roll-out begins next week, reports late Saturday said.

The monarch, 94, and her 99-year-old husband Prince Philip are in line to get the jab early due to their age and will not receive preferential treatment, the Mail on Sunday reported.

The newspaper said Britain’s most senior royals would reveal they have been given the inoculation “to encourage more people to take up the vital jab”, amid fears so-called anti-vaxxers could dent enthusiasm for it.

Britain on Wednesday gave emergency approval to the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, with health officials set to use criteria based on age and vulnerability to decide the order of people to receive it.

Elderly care home residents and their carers will be the very first to get inoculated, 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 prioritised by age.

Buckingham Palace did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Daily Mirror also reported a string of high-profile figures in Britain had committed publicly to getting the vaccine in a bid to boost take-up.

They include Monty Python star Michael Palin and Bob Geldof, the tabloid said.

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