London: William Shakespeare, an 81-year-old man, who became the second person in the United Kingdom to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, died of an unrelated illness.
Sources said that he died of a stroke. As he was a patient at University Hospitals Coventry's frailty ward, he received his first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech jab on December 8, 2020.
He had gained international attention not just because of his age but also because he shared his name with the world's greatest playwright and poet of the 16th century.
According to the reports, Shakespeare's friend and Coventry councillor Jayne Innes said that he had died on Thursday and added the "best tribute to Bill is to have the jab." He had been a parish councillor for 30 years and chaired the council for 20 of those.
Jayne said, "He was such a lovely man, one who had a real commitment to making his local area better."
His wife, Joy, said in a tribute that Shakespeare felt very grateful and hugely proud of being offered the opportunity to become one of the first people in the world to be given the COVID-19 vaccine. "Mr Shakespeare loved seeing the media coverage about him in December and would often talk about it to people to encourage them to get their vaccine whenever he could," she added. He lived with his wife, two adult sons and grandchildren.
The West Midlands Labour group said on Twitter that Shakespeare's decades of service to the party were recently recognised. "Our thoughts are with Joy and Bill's family and friends," it said.
It tweeted, "We're sorry to hear of the death of Coventry Labour stalwart Bill Shakespeare. Bill made global headlines as 1st first man to have Covid vaccine. His decades of service to the party were recently recognised by @Keir_Starmer. Our thoughts are with Joy and Bill's family & friends."
According to the sources, Shakespeare was a talented photographer and loved all kinds of music, especially jazz and regularly attended gigs to take pictures of the musicians.
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