Queen says Covid jab ‘didn’t hurt at all’ - and tells Brits hesitant about vaccination to ‘think about other people’

The head of state, who was inoculated in January, said after having the vaccine you felt “protected”, which she described as “important” during a video call with health leaders delivering the Covid-19 vaccine across the four nations.

Asked for “feedback” about her vaccination experience, she chuckled as she told the officials “it was quite harmless”.

During the conversation held on Tuesday, the head of state likened the coronavirus to a “plague” that has swept across the globe, and when a health leader said he wanted to “bottle” the community unity he had encountered the Queen suggested it was like the wartime spirit she experienced.

The Queen spoke to the four senior responsible officers overseeing the delivery of the vaccine in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland to hear about the collaborative effort which has passed the milestone of 18 million people vaccinated in the UK since the call was made.

She praised the vaccine rollout, describing its speed and the millions inoculated as “remarkable” and in a morale boost told the health leaders to “keep up the good work”.

Dr Emily Lawson, who is leading the vaccine deployment programme for the NHS in England, told the Queen: “We hope everyone who is offered the vaccine will take it up, because it is … all of our best chances to protect both the people who take up the vaccine, their families and their communities.”

The monarch replied: “Once you’ve had the vaccine you have a feeling of, you know, you’re protected, which is I think very important.

“I think the other thing is, that it is obviously difficult for people if they’ve never had a vaccine…but they ought to think about other people rather than themselves.”

Derek Grieve, head of the Scottish Government’s Vaccinations Division, highlighted how residents from the Isle of Benbecula, in the Outer Hebrides, and the Coast Guard, local authority and volunteers had rallied together to set up a vaccination centre in a community hall in a matter of days.

He added: “So my lasting reflection ma’am would be if I could bottle this community spirit and use it, not just for the vaccination programme but for other things, I think the job would be done.”

The Queen said: “Wouldn’t it be nice.”

She added: “Well, having lived in the war. It’s very much like that, you know, when everybody had the same idea. And I think this has rather, sort of, inspired that – hasn’t it?”

After the call Dr Lawson described the Queen’s comments about her vaccine experience as an “incredibly important vote of confidence in the programme”.

She added: “We just want to make sure we create the conditions where everybody feels able to take up the offer of a vaccination when they’re called.

“And Her Majesty offering her view on that is a huge boost to our confidence and I hope to confidence more broadly in the programme.”

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