I had my first Covid-19 vaccination on Tuesday. It’s the first time in my life I have looked forward to being stuck with a needle. As a child one of my greatest fears was that there would be a “surprise” vaccination at school. This was the seventies, nobody told children what was going on and you were just expected to accept stuff like a random person in a white coat, who you had never met, insisting you line up in an assembly hall before they stabbed you with a blunt needle.
Forty five years later, things are better. On the day, the process was smooth and seamless. The volunteers and NHS staff were chatty and good natured and it helped enormously that it was a sunny, crisp morning. I arrived at the centre at 0945 and was out of the door at 1005, which included the mandatory fifteen minute wait to ensure that you don’t experience a severe allergic reaction.
After my jab, I sat in the marquee outside waiting for my 15 minute timer to chime and set me free and looked at the people around me. It was mixture of middle aged and elderly people but they all shared one thing: they looked happy. Even with face masks, you could see in their eyes the joy and relief that they had received the jab. It was an experience that I was sharing. Until this point, I hadn’t realised how much internal stress I had been holding about catching the virus over the last ten months. We all have a long way to go to get through this pandemic, but for me, this felt like the start of the end.
