UK healthcare worker isolating for months among first to get COVID-19 vaccine

A vulnerable healthcare worker isolating for months in South Wales will be one of the first people in the UK to get the coronavirus vaccine.

Julie Harris received the life-changing news via text message that the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board had invited her to get the jab next week.

Ms Harris, 48, has been isolating inside her Torfaen home for a number of months due to her underlying health conditions.

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"To be honest with you, it felt like the best Christmas present to wake up to on Christmas morning … it was a huge, huge relief," she told Sky News.

"For me it was the beginning of the end of isolation and loneliness."

The healthcare worker, who looks after disabled children, has not been able to work due to the virus spreading rampantly in the UK.

"Where my job is concerned, it just means I can provide a service which they're so desperate for, it means I can use my skills and help people who are vulnerable and absolutely need care," she said.

"When I go into work, it's not like going into work for me, we provide a service which makes people's lives so happy."

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Ms Harris has not seen her family in months, including her newborn grandson who was born just before the pandemic began, and her vulnerable mother.

The vaccine would mark the end of a "horrific year", she said.

"It will mean that we can be together with all our loved ones," Ms Harris said.

"My mother-in-law in a nursing home, my mother, who's 68... it means I can hug her.

"I haven't hugged her for like a year. To get a motherly hug right now would be amazing.

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She fears some healthcare workers will have doubts over the vaccine and will not take it, prompting her to lead by example.

"If the vaccine isn't given, COVID is going to kill loads and loads more people," Ms Harris said.

"I think it's Russian roulette - we don't know a lot about it, but if there's a chance that this pandemic can end, then I'm happy to have the vaccine and take the risk and I think others should do that too."