Per Ardua Ad AstraZeneca
Feb. 9th, 2021 05:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gervase_fenNovember 1980. It's a blustery Saturday afternoon and the ten year old me is going to Fareham Library. There is a traffic jam with cars parked over the pelican crossing, the skies are grey, and the motorcyclist didn't stand a chance, hitting me as I emerged between the parked cars. And that's how I lost my spleen.
February 2021. So having been in a high risk group since the pandemic began, and unable to folllow (for financial reasons) the government advice to self isolate from work throughout, the GP practice sends me a text with a link to book an appointment to be vaccinated. The vaccination centre is the Hampshire Court Hotel, where Sheena had her induction when she joined Dunelm many years ago. The car park is well signposted and there are marshalls (going by the high vis tabards, from the Rotary Club) directing attendees into spaces by time slot.A questionnaire - preflight checks concerning existing health conditions, ethnicity and occupation - is handed out.
Going inside the hotel via the Business Centre lobby, my hands are sanitised by a volunteer, before I go to the desk where my name and date of birth are asked for. No other forms of ID are required. I'm then handed a small piece of paper with my name and two QR codes on it (one with my name again, the other with my NHS number.)
The hotel's conference room has been repurposed with field hospital style cubicles, some with two chairs for helpers who have come in with patients. I guess I'm on the younger side of the age range of those here, something confirmed when the nurse administering the jab seems puzzled when I tell her that I'm not a carer, don't work for the health service or in a nursing home. "I've got no spleen - that should do it". After the injection I'm given a business card with the time and date of my second and final injection, eleven weeks from today. I'm asked if I drove to the hotel, because all vaccinated patients have to wait fifteen minutes after receiving their injection and in January many of the newly vaccinated had a good old moan about that. "It's not as if they could go and get a cup of tea or anything," the nurse says.
My arm aches steadily for about twenty minutes ninety minutes or so later. The business card is on the fridge - when I told the nurse that Sheena had driven me to the hotel, she wanted to know how old she was, and when I told her (as gallantly as possible as she's still in her 40s) I was told to be careful not mix up the card with the one that Sheena will be getting some time after her birthday this year.
February 2021. So having been in a high risk group since the pandemic began, and unable to folllow (for financial reasons) the government advice to self isolate from work throughout, the GP practice sends me a text with a link to book an appointment to be vaccinated. The vaccination centre is the Hampshire Court Hotel, where Sheena had her induction when she joined Dunelm many years ago. The car park is well signposted and there are marshalls (going by the high vis tabards, from the Rotary Club) directing attendees into spaces by time slot.A questionnaire - preflight checks concerning existing health conditions, ethnicity and occupation - is handed out.
Going inside the hotel via the Business Centre lobby, my hands are sanitised by a volunteer, before I go to the desk where my name and date of birth are asked for. No other forms of ID are required. I'm then handed a small piece of paper with my name and two QR codes on it (one with my name again, the other with my NHS number.)
The hotel's conference room has been repurposed with field hospital style cubicles, some with two chairs for helpers who have come in with patients. I guess I'm on the younger side of the age range of those here, something confirmed when the nurse administering the jab seems puzzled when I tell her that I'm not a carer, don't work for the health service or in a nursing home. "I've got no spleen - that should do it". After the injection I'm given a business card with the time and date of my second and final injection, eleven weeks from today. I'm asked if I drove to the hotel, because all vaccinated patients have to wait fifteen minutes after receiving their injection and in January many of the newly vaccinated had a good old moan about that. "It's not as if they could go and get a cup of tea or anything," the nurse says.
My arm aches steadily for about twenty minutes ninety minutes or so later. The business card is on the fridge - when I told the nurse that Sheena had driven me to the hotel, she wanted to know how old she was, and when I told her (as gallantly as possible as she's still in her 40s) I was told to be careful not mix up the card with the one that Sheena will be getting some time after her birthday this year.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-10 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-10 06:43 am (UTC)The nightmare will be if there is any sort of vaccine bounce for thr charlatans who a year ago were contemplating herd immunity.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-10 05:13 pm (UTC)