LONDON: UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday announced that the first vaccinations against the coronavirus have begun in the country.

Taking to Twitter, Johnson said, “Today the first vaccinations in the UK against COVID-19 begin. Thank you to our NHS, to all of the scientists who worked so hard to develop this vaccine, to all the volunteers – and to everyone who has been following the rules to protect others. We will beat this together.” On December 2, the UK became the first country in the world to authorise the use of Pfizer and BioNTech for emergency purposes, thus, paving way for the delivery of the vaccines.

According to the latest data by the Johns Hopkins University, globally 67,650,207 people have tested positive for coronavirus and 1,545,723 deaths have been reported so far.