Queen Elizabeth II has used her birthday honors list to celebrate those at the forefront of the U.K.'s rapid rollout of COVID-19 vaccines over the past few months, which has been credited with turning around the country's pandemic response,
ABC News reports.
Two of the most high-profile women in the vaccination drive, Professor Sarah Gilbert of the University of Oxford, and venture capitalist Kate Bingham, the former head of the U.K. Vaccines Taskforce, have been recognized with damehoods in the list published late Friday.
Gilbert was instrumental in the development of the vaccine being manufactured by pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, while Bingham has been widely lauded for the country's successful vaccine procurement program.
Though the U.K. has seen Europe's highest virus-related death toll, with nearly 128,000 people having lost their lives, the vaccination program has been deemed as one of the world's speediest and most coherent rollouts.
In December, a 90-year-old British grandmother became the first person in the world to be given the Pfizer vaccine outside of a trial. Since then, around 61% of the U.K. population has received at least one dose of vaccine, while about 43% has had two. The rollout, which has primarily been based on age, was earlier this week extended to 25- to 29-year-olds.
Also honored are a multitude of specialists from across the scientific community for their efforts in developing vaccines, running clinical trials, delivering testing and tracking coronavirus infections. The selfless work of people to help others during the pandemic, from running free taxis for key workers to making bottles of hand sanitizer, was also recognized by the 95-year-old monarch.
