Irish Examiner view: Day the world started to fight back

Vaccination anniversary

Margaret Keenan, 90, is applauded by staff as she returns to her ward after becoming the first person in the United Kingdom to receive the PfizerBioNtech Covid-19 vaccine at University Hospital, Coventry, on December 8, 2020.  Picture: Jacob King/PA Wire

It was one year ago this morning, at 6.31am, that the world started its fightback against Covid-19 and the global pandemic which has wrecked and disrupted so many lives.

The first crusader was an unlikely superheroine. 90-year-old grandmother Margaret Keenan, who hailed originally from Enniskillen, in the North but lived in Coventry for 60 years, received the world’s first dose of PfizerBioNTech administered outside of clinical trials. Three weeks later she received her second jab ― this was in the early days before the gaps between innoculations were lengthened in order to maximise the availability of vaccines so that more people could benefit more quickly from the programme. Then this September Margaret, or Maggie as she likes to be called, received her booster.