British woman, 86, who lost husband to COVID is among first to get vaccine

An 86-year-old British woman, who lost her husband to COVID-19 in April, was among the first in the world to be offered the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against the virus on Tuesday and was looking forward to going shopping and taking the bus again.

Gill Rogers last saw her husband in mid-March at the care home where he was living. Then the pandemic hit, she was no longer able to visit him, and in late April he died. "The death certificate showed several things but it also showed COVID-19," Rogers said in a BBC radio interview, shortly before she was due to receive the vaccine.

She has been grieving alone, as her children and other relatives have been avoiding contact with her for fear of exposing her to the virus. "That's been quite hard," she said, her voice cracking.

Rogers, who lives near Brighton in southern England, said she had spent most of the year on her own, keeping out of shops as much as possible and avoiding public transport altogether. She said that when she received a call during the weekend offering her an early appointment to get the vaccine on Tuesday, the first day of its national rollout in Britain, she immediately said yes.

"I shan't be so careful, I shan't be so worried, I will go in shops more and with luck I might get onto public transport," she said. Asked whether she had had any doubts about the safety of the vaccine, she answered: "No. None at all."

She said she knew there were people who had concerns, and she had contacted the BBC because she thought talking about her own situation might help them overcome those doubts. "That's why I contacted you, because I thought there might be people who it would help to have it, who wouldn't have had it perhaps."

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