Science Museum acquires empty vial from world's first Covid-19 vaccine 11 Jan 2021

On 8th December 2020, 90-year-old Margaret Keenan became the first person to receive a Covid-19 vaccine outside of a trial, when she received the Pfizer/BioNTech version at Coventry University Hospital. Now the Science Museum has acquired the empty vial as part of its Covid-19 collecting project. Other objects collected include homemade masks and ‘stay at home’ signs from Downing Street briefings. These acquisitions fit with a much longer story of combating disease told by the museum, which also holds the lancets used in the first vaccinations in 1796. All will be part of an exhibition opening at the museum during the spring, which will also give the context of previous epidemics including Ebola, polio and bubonic plague. Guardian, SMG