An 87-year-old retired race relations expert from Newcastle will help make medical history when he does his “duty” and becomes one of the first people in the western world to have a Covid vaccine.

“I’m so pleased we are hopefully coming towards the end of this pandemic and I am delighted to be doing my bit by having the vaccine”, said Hari Shukla ahead of receiving his jab. “I feel it is my duty to do so and do whatever I can to help.”…

Shukla is one of the 400,000 people who will be injected – in the shoulder, not the arm, as with most injections – as a priority at one of 50 hospitals around England because they are either over 80, live or work in a care home, or are an NHS worker with poor underlying health or whose work puts them at higher risk.