Britain on Monday began inoculating its citizens with the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. The first shot was given to Brian Pinker, an 82-year-old dialysis patient, at a hospital a few hundred meters away from where the vaccine was developed.

"I am so pleased to be getting the COVID vaccine today and really proud that it is one that was invented in Oxford," he said in a statement released by the health service.

"The nurses, doctors and staff today have all been brilliant and I can now really look forward to celebrating my 48th wedding anniversary with my wife Shirley later this year."

Britain has ordered 100 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot, and is also rolling out a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.