Britain began vaccinating its population on Monday with the COVID-19 shot developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, touting its position as the first Western country to roll out an inoculation program against the novel coronavirus.

Britain, which is rushing to vaccinate its population faster than the United States and the rest of Europe in a bid to put the pandemic behind it, is the first country to roll out the Oxford/AstraZeneca shot.

It last year rolled out the Pfizer and Germany's BioNTech vaccine. Dialysis patient Brian Pinker, 82, was the first to get the Oxford/AstraZeneca shot at Oxford University Hospital.