The UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the start of the roll-out of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine meant there was "finally" a "way through" the coronavirus crisis.

The NHS has become the first health service in the world to begin rolling out Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine.

It is the largest-scale immunisation programme in the UK's history and comes as a much-needed boost amid the festive period.

Grandmother Margaret Keenan, 90, received the jab at about 6.45am in Coventry on Tuesday, marking the start of a historic mass vaccination programme.

Mr Hancock said: "I’m feeling quite emotional actually watching those pictures. It has been such a tough year for so many people and finally, we have our way through it – our light at the end of the tunnel as so many people are saying.

"And just watching Margaret there – it seems so simple having a jab in your arm, but that will protect Margaret and it will protect the people around her.

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"And if we manage to do that in what is going to be one of the biggest programmes in NHS history, if we manage to do that for everybody who is vulnerable to this disease then we can move on."

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock told BBC Good Morning Scotland the next doses of the vaccine will arrive next week.

He said: "The next scheduled arrival will be next week and the numbers depend on how quickly Pfizer can manufacture it.

"It is being manufactured in Belgium and obviously right across the UK the job is to be able to get the vaccinations done as quickly as the manufacturer can create it, so we’ve been all working together really closely, the UK Government, which has been buying the vaccine and getting it delivered into the country, and then the NHS in the four nations of the UK.”

Asked how quickly the vaccine can arrive and in what sort of numbers, he replied: "We’ve got a broad schedule, there will be several million for the UK as a whole, so several hundred thousand for Scotland over the remainder of this month.

"We’ve got that as a broad delivery schedule but obviously the manufacturing process itself is complicated, so we’ve got to get the stuff in the country and then once it’s in the country we can be confident that we’re able to deliver it, and I’m sure the NHS across Scotland and across the whole of the UK is up to the challenge."

Health Secretary Matt Hancock urged people to continue to obey the coronavirus restrictions despite the rollout of a vaccine.

READ MORE: Coronavirus vaccination rollout as 90-year-old gets Covid jab

He said: "It’s great news that we are the first country in the world to have this clinically authorised and being able to roll out this programme.

"And when enough people who are vulnerable to Covid-19 have been vaccinated then, of course, we can lift the restrictions… we think that will be in the spring.

"It’s very important for everyone watching that whilst we vaccinate people – and we will do that at the pace at which the manufacturers can produce the vaccine – whilst we vaccinate people and whilst we get the second dose in, we’ve got to hold our nerve, we’ve got to stick together and we’ve got to follow the rules.

"It is no good everybody relaxing now – we’ve got to hold firm until the vaccination programme has reached enough vulnerable people so that we don’t have people dying from coronavirus in the number that we do today."