Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip Receive Covid-19 Vaccination

Queen Elizabeth, 94, and her husband Prince Philip, 99, have received Covid-19 vaccination on Saturday, the Buckingham Palace has said. Sources in the royal family said the vaccinations were administered by a household doctor at Windsor Castle.

The Queen decided to let it be known to the UK citizens she had the vaccination to prevent further speculation. The Queen is highly respected in British society and her support to the vaccine is considered to be sending a strong message to counter anti-vaccination misinformation being spread online.

The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh are among around 1.5 million people in the UK to have got at least one dose of Covid vaccine so far. In the UK, people aged over 80 are among the high-priority groups who are being given the vaccine first.

The couple have been spending their time during the lockdown at their Windsor Castle home in England after deciding to have a quiet Christmas at their Berkshire residence, instead of the traditional royal family gathering at Sandringham.

In December 2020, the Queen, along with some senior members of the royal family, appeared in the public for the first time since the Coronavirus pandemic broke out.

In 2020, she remained outside the royal residence for seven months, between March and October, without carrying out public engagements. At this time, both the heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles, 72, and his eldest son, Prince William, tested positive for Covide-19 earlier in the year.

On Friday, the vaccine manufactured by US company Moderna was approved for use in the UK, after that of Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines.

However, it is not known which vaccine was administered to the Queen and Prince Philip. The Coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 60,000 people in the UK and infected more than 1.7 million.