London, Dec 6 (FN Bureau) Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, 94, will get the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine along with her husband, 99-year-old Prince Philip, in the coming weeks, the Daily Mail reported on Saturday. The Queen will not get any preferential treatment and will “wait in line” as the coronavirus vaccine shots are administered to the category of over-80s and care home residents, the newspaper said on Sunday.
According to public health experts cited by the Daily Mail, the royal couple’s vaccination is expected to curb misinformation about COVID-19 treatment. On Wednesday, the UK granted emergency use approval to a candidate vaccine produced by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German firm BioNTech, becoming the first country in the world to do so. British ministers have said that they are confident as many as 800,000 doses of the US-German vaccine would arrive in the UK by next week. As many as 50 hospital hubs are expected to start vaccinating high priority groups in England starting from next Tuesday, according to British media reports. The United Kingdom has over 1.7 million confirmed coronavirus cases and the country’s COVID-19 death toll stands at over 61,000.