It is jab and go

Come on over

For the past month, I have been pestered by messages and alerts to go for my seasonal COVID-19 vaccine as the health authorities have considered there is a strain of concern about, a spike in infections leading to hospitalisations, and the danger it poses to those in a vulnerable cohort.

When I took my last booster in June, I left it well over a month from the first notification before I relented. I suppose the other issue is since the autumn of last year, there have been no nearby locations or walk-in centres to obtain the vaccine or booster.

Outskirts for jabs

The nearest locations are at least 2 kilometres and over a mile and a half away. It could easily be walked, though in finding those locations, it might be best to use public transport and then walk back home.

Why they have decided to move all the vaccination locations out of the city centre, I cannot understand, and this activity is no more at GP surgeries or dedicated facilities, but at chemists and pharmacies where it seems spare and probably medically unqualified hands are assigned the more onerous duty of registration with the rather trivial act of jabbing you in the arm.

Following the advice

What I have also found out is less people in the vulnerable cohort are keen on the booster, I have been advised by many unqualified people to shun the booster, but I will only act on sound medical advice. I was chatting to someone about it the other day and they volunteered that the booster knocked them out for almost a week.

In my case, I have tolerated the vaccine quite well, I was pleased that the sterling work by Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman that went into creating the mRNA-type vaccine put out by Pfizer and Moderna was awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Commending the science

On the counts, I have now had 2 main vaccines and 5 boosters, all mainly Pfizer-BioNTech or Pfizer, except the fourth which was the Moderna vaccine. Just over a day and a half of pain in the area of the injection, a little discomfort but no need for an analgesic.

What has surprised me is we are no longer required to wait around for about 15 minutes to gauge the patient’s reaction to the vaccine. You are jabbed and you leave, complications inadvertently handed off to the emergency services. It did not bother me; I took the time to walk back home through strange alleyways and backstreets.

Manchester keeps giving up new secrets about places, people, and buildings. 10 years here and still there is quite a lot to see.