UK approves Pfizer's vaccine

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First nation in the West to do so

The approval kicks off a vaccination campaign with little precedent in modern medicine, encompassing not only ultracold dry ice and trays of glass vials but also a crusade against anti-vaccine misinformation.

The specter of Britain beating the United States to approval had already angered the White House in recent days, heaping additional pressure on American regulators to match Britain’s pace.

But while the go-ahead for Pfizer bodes well for rich countries like Britain that have ordered tens of millions of doses, it offered little relief to poorer countries that could not afford to buy supplies in advance and may struggle to pay for the exceptional demands of distributing the vaccine.