Coronavirus streets in Manchester - LXXV

Shopping around for pricks

At lunchtime today I had been phoning around to find a pharmacy, chemist, apothecary, or even a shamanist grotto offering the NHS Seasonal Vaccination for COVID-19, normally termed the booster shot.

I found a chemist location that did not have a pharmaceutical reference in their name suggesting they could give the shot today when I called yesterday afternoon. As I did not want another wasted journey, I called again this morning and was told, that if I arrived before 5:00PM, I could get the jab.

It would have been a 35-minute walk, but I got on a bus and the area looked familiar enough even as it is miles away from where I live. When I got there, I was asked to sit in a waiting area where I was the only one for the vaccine booster.

Those were big bulging lips

Soon, a young lady, trim and straining to be polite came out and asked for my name and other particulars, I noticed that all my data was presented on the computer she was working from. Her makeup was light, but it appeared she had gone for the prominent lip-boosted look, highly exaggerated and heavy with lip gloss, you could say the lips belonged on a Barbie doll, but what do I know about ladies’ lips?

The section where I was to be given the jab was in the front of the store by the window with a one-way screen, you could see out but those on the street could not see in. Sometimes, you need to be convinced that is really the case. People may not see the way you see things, and that includes lips too.

This would be the 8^th COVID-19-related prophylactic jab, 6 of the Pfizer type and 2 of the Moderna type mRNA injections.

She did not introduce the hypodermic needle with the customary, “Just a scratch,” that you hear nurses say when you are about to take the prick of a needle. It is a thinner needle, and the deed is done before you know it.

It went into my upper left arm, and in the little banter we had after being injected she said people had been coming from far away to get the vaccine. There is an inventory management issue as not all listed chemists have stocks to serve their communities.

A busman living for trouble

Back at the bus stop for my return journey, there was a bus in a minute, and it did arrive as I tried to wave it down to stop. The driver looked in my direction and shrugged, not even slowing down at all. I overlooked the slight as there was another bus scheduled to arrive, but someone standing at the bus stop with me and another walking up to the bus stop who put out his arm to wave it to a stop both said the bus had enough time to stop for me.

Much as I said I was not bothered, they read more into the event, apart from calling the driver unprintable names, they both indicated the driver was racist, these were two white men who had witnessed something probably unfair, cruel, or unjust, and they were quite riled up. The other man who attempted to wave down the bus said he would report the issue.

At which point, I posted a tweet to the Bee Network that runs the bus services in Greater Manchester just as the next and now, double-decker bus arrived and stopped for me to board. The jab seemed to exacerbate a sense of tiredness affecting my concentration, and as that wore off, it is just the slight pain in the area that suggests I had my dermis punctured earlier today.

Coronavirus streets in Manchester - LXXIV

Out of sight, but still about

You rarely hear of it anymore, that is the Coronavirus or COVID-19, but to think it has disappeared totally is to be deluded beyond reason. Even if you do not follow the statistics, there are signs, notifications, or indications that we still need some precautions.

I cannot say for what reason, but I have noticed seemingly healthy young people donning facemasks and those are not passing for balaclavas envisaging criminal behaviour nor is this observed on the typically Far-East Asian cohort who have no qualms about masking and this before it became an accessory for infectious disease control here.

Beckoning for a reckoning

Then obviously the notices pushed to our mobile phones for those over a certain age or are immunosuppressed. This tranche of vaccine boosters is to run until the 30^th of June, but you cannot get a pharmacy to walk in for a shot.

Apart from the fact that there is none in the city centre where outlets like Boots or Superdrug could have been engaged, I guess there is no incentive for other chemists to participate. Last week, I made my way to one chemist that had unusually long opening hours and they had no supplies and were not expecting any for up to two weeks hence.

The lesson learnt was to call first before embarking on my journey and it seems the shortage is widespread, they are not inviting anyone to attend today and the possibility of being able to deliver tomorrow is speculative, at best.

Is anyone giving the jab?

The apparent lack of coordination between the drive to get us boosted and the absence of stocks to meet the demand is, in a way, redolent of the legacy of the NHS that the Tories have superintended in 14 years. However, few would take notice of that reality.

If I do get a booster anytime soon, it would be the first 2 vaccines and the 5^th booster and I would rather have it following the advice than listen to the unqualified with their conspiracy theories about COVID-19, the vaccines, and much else. The greater culprits in this atrocity and disservice to public health seem to be religious leaders.

It still behoves all to keep safe and I do have a stash of facemasks in my rucksack for times when it just seems smart and prudent to wear one.

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. 

Another booster on good advice

Walk-in somewhere far away

I had been receiving a notification for over a month that I should consider getting the Spring COVID-19 booster as I am understood to have a weakened immune system.

For the previous boosters, I have just had to walk up to the offices beside the Central Library, hardly 5 minutes away to get my jab. However, on receiving the notice, I found there were no walk-in vaccine centres in the city centre, the nearest was just over one and half miles away.

Besides the option to walk-in, these centres only had specific days of the week that they offered the jab, most of them somewhat inconvenient besides the fact that you probably want to get it over with than wait until the weekend. The whole concept of walking-in which one would think allows for an unscheduled and impromptu visit was somewhat defeated because the freedom to attend was curtailed by the restricted scheduling to see patients.

Get out there and get it

I was prompted to do something when at the weekend, I received a letter, and this was quite apart from the many SMS text messages that had been ringing on my mobile phone. The last day for receiving the Spring booster was the 30^th of June after which one will have to wait until the autumn season.

It could have been ignored, but every once in a while, I hear of someone contracting COVID with a varied spectrum of severity of symptoms. If the number of people who tested positive in the week including the 3^rd of June is 4,331 and deaths for the week including the 22^nd of May is 231, according to the government website. COVID remains a threat, even if it is not in the news and well-considered precautions remain sensible and necessary. In my region, for the recorded period, there have been an increase in deaths by 5 to 33 and hospital admissions down 29 to 277.

I take advice seriously

I use medical consultancy services and follow the advice I am given by my doctors after my concerns have been addressed and my questions answered. They know we all have access to reams of Internet information from which genuine or absurd inquiry might arise and I take into full consideration much of the information necessary to achieve the best patient outcomes for myself.

I have stuck with the mRNA vaccines which are the Pfizer and Moderna products and so far, I have had 2 main Pfizer jabs, then a Pfizer booster, a Moderna booster, and the last 2 were the Pfizer booster with modifications for COVID variants, it is now 6 injections since February 2021. Some might advice you do not need the booster, but they are not experts in the field, just people informed by sentiment or misinformation.

It was about a 40-munite walk to the chemist this morning, I stated my intent, and I was seen to after 10 minutes, the jab was from such a tiny hypodermic needle, you hardly felt it. As long as I was feeling fine, I did not have to wait the regulatory 15 minutes for observation.

Keep with the experts

What I find bizarre is the number of conspiracy theorists who are against vaccination regimes not out of producing data that meets the test of scientific and informed rigour, much as their arguments seem persuasive, I would rather listen to scientists, vaccinologists, or epidemiologists speak than people with political or social media platforms without the essential tutelage of expertise and knowledge.

It is just absurd to pitch an influencer against an expert in a field for purpose of debate on an area of specialisation that is certified beyond enthusiastic dilettantism. Yet, this is what we see nowadays, and I present the tweet I posted earlier today for your reflection.

The absurdity of having an expert debate a conspiracy theorist is so totally exemplified in this cartoon where a random passenger in flight says, "These smug pilots have lost touch with regular passengers like us. Who thinks I should fly the plane?"
Like seriously? Hands raised? pic.twitter.com/bDqtEwRNyN

— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ 🏳️‍🌈 #European (@forakin) June 19, 2023

Thought Picnic: From overloaded to overcoming

Body in overload

Having been back from Cape Town for just over a week, it has been unsettling without the clear ability to concentrate on anything so functionally productive. For the last two nights in South Africa, I took time away for just myself, much as I have a quest for lasting and exciting companionship, I am quite essentially an introvert, desperately in need of just my own company and my own space, I love the outer quiet that allows the robust debates in my head to engage quite vigorously, almost to exhaustion.

Back at home, without due consideration for the change in environment and weather, I took my second COVID vaccine booster (the fourth jab), the next day. They did not have the Pfizer/BioNTech Comirnaty product on offer which I had for the first two vaccines and the booster, but I was offered the Moderna Spikevax instead, and it is based on the same mRNA technology.

Questions on disorder

As I am in a vulnerable cohort, I will on the advice of my supervising medical personnel take whatever protections are offered, I do not have the requisite medical knowledge to make far-reaching decisions that can be quite impactful on my health and wellbeing, I would rather ask questions demanding satisfactory and convincing answers than unilaterally exclude myself from the purview of medical management.

I think both factors; the change in weather and the booster exacerbated a feeling of discomfort and unease, along with some weakness and tiredness. Much as I exercised will over capability, there was much I was not doing, including getting back to my walking exercises. To heap on that distress, my house sitter had rearranged my home, with things not being where I would have had a mental note of leaving them and other things not being in the order or way they should be left.

Patterns of mindfulness

I try to convince myself that I can handle a bit of chaos or bring some order to things, but it is more upsetting to realise that deliberate disorder has been introduced to a space that is usually exclusively yours. It might well be that I find myself somewhere on the autistic spectrum that once the patterns I expect to observe have been distorted, I am deep into stress management and countermeasures.

At one time, I could not find what I was looking for it had been secreted away somewhere else, I just went to bed trying not to bother myself until they were found the next day. Later, when I could not find the power adapter to one of the laptops, I could not be bothered with asking, I just ordered another and held off until the next day again, what I wanted to do.

Funnily, it is at these times that could trigger a mental breakdown in others that I just want some peace around me, refusing to socialise even when it can be beneficial, because I just want to be alone with my thoughts or go to sleep and let all the turmoil resolve itself in the subconscious.

Completing all material

It might seem quirky too that the rest of the material for the Microsoft test I passed two weeks ago that I could never have done in time for taking the test on the Microsoft Learn website needed going through. I completed the full curriculum on Monday and Tuesday over almost 20 hours. I had the feeling, that just because I had passed the test did not mean I should abandon the material. I did the same for the test I passed in early June.

I think over the next few days, I would get back to myself to be more full of what I like to do, I am taking each day at a time, thankful for all the blessings and goodwill that surround me.

I do miss Brian, he is everything that exudes the joy and fun I enjoy in a person as much as he can infuriate and frustrate, you learn to manage these things in a relationship, and for all the apparent togetherness I portray, I am just as imperfect, hoping to be a better man and lover – it is a work in progress.

I am a dreamer and my dreams have come truer and better than I ever could dare to imagine, it comes to a point that I am sometimes afraid to live in the reality of extraordinary dreams coming true, for that I might just need some help because there are exciting lives to live and stories to tell.

More fuel to the Pfizer

Pricks and nicks

Two things have been on my mind for the past month or so, both related to my health for which I needed to plan for and have done before the prospect of a rendezvous with my partner in December. My typically biannual check-up which usually occurs in mid-April and mid-October had landed this time in the last week of October and so the next appointment six months after.

Then, having taken my second COVID jab on May the 6^th, I had been looking to book my booster shot anytime around the 6^th of November. In fact, I had been looking for a slot since the middle of October, though the initial indications suggested at least 6 months and a week after the second jab. Then on Saturday, I found out that from Monday you could find a slot online to get the booster shot.

Running with runs

I was of the mind that I had told everyone, yet it just happened that in the fog of apparently letting everyone know, I had inadvertently not told Brian. You can trust I was going to get an earful for that. On Monday, I did get a slot for after work on Wednesday, today, none of the locations anywhere nearby that I decided to go to the Manchester Tennis and Football Centre by the Manchester City Football Club Etihad campus – that was going to be an Uber ride.

Meanwhile, yesterday, I had a bout of diarrhoea that left me visiting the toilet 10 times around bedtime over some 2 hours. Whilst it appeared to subside in the morning but persist through the day, I had hoped Imodium instants would help as I contemplated postponing my booster shot appointment.

In the end, I took precautions for the inadvertent flows and made for the vaccination venue where I was ushered in to first sanitise my hands and don a new face mask provided by the venue and I proceeded to the registration desk where my booking was retrieved, and a few COVID-related questions were asked.

Just some assurance

Then on to a second registration desk where more questions were asked about allergies, conditions, current medication, participation in recent trials and how I was feeling. On being told I had the runs since yesterday, the nurse sought advice from the location pharmacist who could not be located for probably 10 minutes, at which point they got me a chair to sit down.

The pharmacist came and said as long I was not feeling unwell or running a temperature, the diarrhoea should have no particular consequence. However, with that knowledge, it was left to me to decide if I wanted to go ahead with the booster shot. I felt it would be fine and then I was ushered into the queue for the Pfizer BioNTech Comirnaty vaccine.

Boost your immunity

Much banter ensued between us, the nurse who asked my name and I offered to give a list of 24, the need to take off my long-sleeved shirt that they brought over a screen lest my nudity and corset be exposed to the public and we were done before I was to sit in a waiting area for 15 minutes ere my journey home. Brian called and it was then I realised he had not been informed and my ear was pulled for longer than I could endure.

He felt I should have allowed recovery from the diarrhoea before going for the shot and whilst it is sensible, the medical opinion made allowances and having taken the jab, what mattered was keeping hydrated, taking some rest and probably an analgesic as my body got back together again. I did not want to add fuel to the fire on the whys and wherefore, I had just taken on fuel to my Pfizer. I’ll be fine.