Boris Johnson won’t skip line to get COVID vaccination, aide says

Boris Johnson is ready to get a COVID-19 vaccination jab, his aide says, but the British prime minister will give priority to those with “high risk of serious complications.”

Johnson earlier hailed as “fantastic” the news that Britain is now the first Western country to approve the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, as England emerged from lockdown.

Johnson “wouldn’t want to take a jab that should be for somebody who is extremely vulnerable, clinically vulnerable,” the prime minister’s press secretary Allegra Stratton tells reporters.

The 56-year-old Conservative leader was one of the first senior British officials to get infected with the virus in April, after his government was slow to adopt strict lockdown measures.

He initially brushed off his illness but ended up spending around a week in hospital, including a period in intensive care and later admitted his life had hung in the balance.

— AFP

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures during his visit to the Tollgate Medical Centre in Becton, east London on July 24, 2020. (Jeremy Selwyn/POOL/AFP)