LABOUR hailed the new coronavirus vaccine programme as a “light at the end of this very long tunnel” after elderly people were the first in Britain to begin receiving the jab today.

In the Commons, shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth described the start of what is expected to be the NHS’s biggest ever immunisation programme as a “wonderful moment,” as scores of hospitals begin to administer the Covid-19 vaccine. 

Margaret Keenan, from Coventry, who turns 91 next week, said she was “so privileged” to be the first in the world to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine outside of a clinical trial, and that it was the “best early birthday present.”