Comment
ARTHUR EDWARDS
Getting the coronavirus vaccine gave me my life back in ten seconds – I’ve booked holidays & rearranged my 80th
AT 11.13am yesterday, in a council sports hall where boxer Tyson Fury won two of his early victories, I beat Covid-19.
And it was all over in ten seconds.
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That is how little time it takes to have the revolutionary coronavirus jab that will give us all back our freedom.
I was one of the first people in Britain to get the Pfizer BioNtech vaccination through my GP surgery.
No strings were pulled because I work for Britain’s biggest newspaper. What happened to me is the way you will get your jab, too.
Just eight days ago I was driving to Yorkshire to photograph William and Kate on their royal train tour when my phone pinged.
It said that, like everyone aged 80 and over, I qualified for the vaccine. Did I want to have it?
I pulled over straight away and could not believe that slots were available the following Tuesday in a mass vaccination at my local leisure centre in Brentwood, Essex.
Normally time flies, but last week dragged because I kept thinking about how my life — and the lives of millions of others — will be getting back to normal.
I was like a kid waiting for Christmas. This day could not come fast enough.
Knowing I was having the jab gave me the confidence to book two holidays for next year and buy tickets for music concerts in Holland.
In August I had to cancel my 80th birthday celebrations because of the pandemic restrictions.
Thanks to this vaccine, I have now re-arranged them for next year, and I am going to invite more people than ever.
If you are eligible, your GP will contact you. Wait to be told. The vaccination programme is being run through the NHS so, rich or poor, you will be on the list for consideration.
At the temporary vaccine centre yesterday, one of many around the UK, senior practice nurse Ann Davis checked my medical history.
Each patient’s records will be double-checked to make sure it is safe for them to have the jab.
A SIMPLE JAB IN THE ARM
In one of four blue cubicles, Nurse Davis explained how the injection would happen, telling me it would not hurt — and it didn’t.
As the needle went in to the top of my left arm, the only thing I felt was that, at last, my life is getting back to normal.
It is a simple jab in the arm and not only will you be saving your life, but you will be saving others.
I was the 35th person she had injected since the doors opened and the centre will be working seven days a week until this first allocation of vaccine, which has to be stored at -75C, is used up.
Dr Nilukshan Jeganathan, 31, who monitored my vaccination, is a member of the NHS committee that organised local GP practices to send their patients to the Brentwood Centre, which from today is in Tier 3.
After sitting for 15 minutes to check there were no adverse effects, I was booked in for a second injection, on January 5, to complete the treatment.
Feeling fine, I joined the steady stream of elderly people strolling back to the car park.
They were all carrying their vaccination card and proudly wearing the stick-on badge we were given to show that after nine months we are finally on the way to immunity from this disease that has killed more than 64,000 in the UK — most of them in our age group.
In the meantime, I will continue to take precautions, confident that soon I will be in no danger from the virus and, more importantly, I will not be putting anyone else at risk.
To anyone who says they are not going to have it, this is just another vaccine.
You will have already had one for illnesses such as mumps, measles, rubella, smallpox, polio and even the flu.
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Why would you not have a vaccine that will stop you dying or becoming seriously ill from Covid-19?
We were constantly promised a vaccine would be available in 2021.
But teams of brilliant scientists, who slaved seven days a week during the pandemic, have performed a miracle in time for Christmas.
I remember going on a Children In Need mission to southern Sudan with singer Fran Healy, from the band Travis.
We met a woman there who had eight children, but five of them died from measles because there was no vaccine. The nearest doctor was 500 miles from their village.
Nobody in the UK will be far from the Covid vaccine.
Those of us in the first wave have lived through World War Two.
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Yesterday it felt like the war was over again.
And Nurse Davis, who has worked in the NHS for 40 years, is proud of her part in the battle against Covid.
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She told me: “Today I feel I am part of history. I want my grandchildren to know I was here.”
UPDATE: As first published, this article said that by having the vaccine 'you will be saving your life and others because you will not have the virus'. Vaccine recipients may in fact contract the virus, but are significantly less likely to suffer life-threatening symptoms, if any. It is also unknown whether vaccines prevent transmission. We are happy to clarify.
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