Just a little prick

There are now three things that I might not die from this winter. Covid, the flu and, after today’s jab, pneumonia. I didn’t realise until a couple of weeks ago that there was a vaccine for pneumonia but for new geriatrics like me, there is and this morning I lapped it up.

I’d have a jab for anything, me. I have no idea what’s in them but the point is that scientists and medics do and they all believe, based on actual evidence, that they are beneficial. It is not hard to choose between experts who say we should have vaccines and David Icke, Piers Corbyn and Right Said Fred who say we shouldn’t.

I was warned by the nurse that this jab might make me feel a bit shit for 24/48 hours, with perhaps a temperature or mild fever. I can definitely live with that. A few hours feeling under the weather is better than the rest of my life in a small pot on the mantelpiece.

I had to travel to a sister surgery to my usual surgery for my jab which was no real inconvenience at all. But there was a great big sign on the door: ‘PLEASE WEAR A MASK’. Great. A brief return journey to the car to retrieve one which had seen better days and in we went, only to find none of the surgery staff were wearing masks, nor were any of the patients in the waiting room except one man who appeared to be warming his neck with his.

I suppose that’s how we’ve become with Covid now that it’s only killing under 800 people a week in England with just under 5000 having been admitted to hospital with it in the last seven days. I guess these figures are insignificant compared to Covid in 2020 but they’re not if you’re one of the near 800 dead people or the just under 5000 people who are wheezing in hospital wards. Mind you, I hated wearing the mask, as most of us do, and was very grateful to remove the thing as soon as I had been jabbed.

Hopefully, science will come up with vaccines for depression, anxiety and a general inability to sleep properly Christ: I’d want one every week if they were invented. I’d be summoned in every year for the mental health season and live a better life. Some hope.