Vaccinated

I have science running through my veins!

I'll be 42 this July, which was enough for me to make the cut for the UK's COVID vaccination programme. Registration was remarkably easy, and unfettered by any attempts by private businesses to inject themselves into the process: I received a text last week that directed me to the official NHS website, entered a few bits of confirmation info, selected a date and time, and I was done! All I had to do was show up.

Today I rode my bike down the road to a converted bowling club where a dozen volunteers shepherded us around and moved us into a waiting space, to the nurses who jabbed us, and back to another waiting space where they ask us to stick around just in case. That's where I am right now, and I'm thinking I'll stick around a while longer 'cause I want to be sure I'm alright.

I received the Oxford/Astra-Zeneca vaccine, which wasn't my preference, but you take what you can get. This is an adenovirus-based vaccine that likely comes with fun side effects like fever, muscle pain etc. There's also a very small risk of blood clots that I have to be aware of, but the risks are tiny in comparison to actually getting COVID, so I'll take it.

Part of me feels a bit guilty though. I'm benefitting here from "vaccine nationalism", the process of rich countries buying up global stock and vaccinating their whole populations first before poorer countries can get access. I'm at a much lower risk than an 80 year old man in India, and yet I'm now (partially) protected, and that man is going to die. This whole ordeal has been an exercise in understanding monkeyspheres and I don't think I've really come to terms with any of it yet. I just wanted my family protected, and then me protected... is it really so wrong to prioritise these above strangers on the other side of the world?

The question is broader though, as we begin to see how the virus is mutating in India and other similarly unprotected populations. Perhaps selfishness isn't enough. Vaccine nationalism may even prove itself to be a fault in the system that COVID exploits. Only time will tell.