Captain Tom Moore, a 99-year-old British war veteran who has raised more than 23 million pounds ($28.77 million) for the health service by walking laps of his garden, opened a new field hospital in northern England on Tuesday via videolink.
Moore praised National Health Service (NHS) workers via video link at the opening of a new "Nightingale" Hospital in Harrogate, northern England, which is being set up to help deal with the coronavirus outbreak.
''I think that we can all say, thank you very much to the National Health Service.
All of you, not just the doctors and nurses but everyone throughout the whole system who are doing such a magnificent job,'' Moore said before receiving a standing ovation from medical workers in attendance.
The World War Two veteran, who has used a walking frame with wheels since breaking his hip, had set himself the target of walking the 25 metres around his garden 100 times before his 100th birthday on April 30.
Moore's original target was to raise 1,000 pounds, but that modest aim was blown away as media attention from around the globe zoomed in on his garden in Bedfordshire, central England.
Human vaccine trials are set to start in the UK as the government allocated over £40 million in funding towards vaccine research..
