Boris Johnson poses for a photograph with a vial of the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine. Photo: Paul Ellis - WPA Pool/Getty Images
A doctor and former Labour MP has said that patients have turned down the US-German Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in order to wait for the “English one.”Dr Paul Williams, the former Labour MP for Stockton South, tweeted: "Some local patients have turned down an offer this weekend of getting a Covid vaccine when they found out it was the Pfizer one. 'I'll wait for the English one'.
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“People at risk of death in the depths of a pandemic,” he continued, “A lesson that Nationalism has consequences.”Stockton South voted overwhelmingly for Leave in the Brexit referendum in 2016. Initial doses of the “English” vaccine being referred to – a joint project between the University of Oxford and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca – were produced in Europe.Read: BioNTech Says COVID Vaccine 'Highly Likely' to Work Against New UK StrainBoth the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine have been approved for use in the UK.The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was certified in the UK in early November, with the first dose administered in December. The Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine meanwhile was was approved for use in the UK at the end of 2020. Over 1.3 million people in the UK so far have been given a vaccine so far.
