Inside a UK vaccination center: Reporter's Notebook

LONDON -- After seeing up close so many people suffering because of COVID-19 for the last year, watching the vaccine being administered is quite a thing.

I saw 84-year-old Tony get his jab at Kings College Hospital. With typical British understatement, he repeated how important it was for people to get the vaccine. "Christmas was just a dream," he said, but now he hopes to be able to see his family. His six grandkids are eager to see him, he said. Tony's wife of 62 years, Glenys, is also getting vaccinated today.

David Fontaine Boyd, from California, is the general manager of Kings College's emergency department and part of the team responsible for overseeing the vaccine rollout.

I asked him how it felt to be one of the first Americans to get the jab -- which he got yesterday -- and he was obviously thrilled.

"I feel very lucky," Boyd told me. "And ... I hope that as we get more and more people, we will start to turn the corner. This to me, felt like it was the first step back towards normality."

Boyd said his family in the States have been calling him to find out when they can get the vaccine. He has a grandmother in a nursing home in Washington state, who he is concerned about. He also said he's hopeful Americans don't take scare stories about the vaccine seriously.

Intensive-care consultant Sancho fought COVID-19 on the front lines. I saw him get vaccinated, which he called "historic" and "so, so important."

Sancho was sitting alongside colleagues in a newly created waiting area. After two health workers got allergic reactions after receiving the vaccine this week, the hospital changed its protocols and now requires those vaccinated to wait 15 minutes before leaving.

The thing that really hits you is the logistical challenge in all this. We saw the freezers in which the vaccine needs to be kept, and this batch has an expiration date of February 2021. But as soon as it comes out of the freezer, that dramatically decreases. Each small vial holding five doses is thawed in a regular refrigerator for three hours. When it is moved out for distribution, the pharmacists only have two hours to get it into a syringe and into a patient. We were with them as they rushed it out the packaging and into small bags to be handed out to nurses.

This hospital is administering 25 vaccines an hour -- and with thousands to do, this is quite a challenge. Plus, the elderly, like Tony, will need to come back for a second jab. But the hospital staff are confident they'll succeed.