Thirteen Jabs and Counting

A Saturday Ritual

Yesterday morning, I stood in a queue at the invitation of my GP. There were two queues, one to the left and another to the right. We on the right were the double jabbers, there to receive both the annual flu jab and the biannual Covid vaccine booster. The ones on the left were there for the flu jab alone.

The GP surgery is not usually open on Saturdays, but for this annual ritual, a day is set aside in September, October, or as late as November. I only began taking the flu jab ten years ago, though it had been recommended to me much earlier.

Thirteen Jabs Later

In terms of COVID-19, this was my thirteenth jab, or more correctly, the eleventh booster following the first two doses in February and May 2021. The Coronavirus is not a distant memory, as the statistics still show that people are being admitted to hospital with complications from the disease.

According to the most recent figures available from the UKHSA data dashboard, there were 261 COVID-19 hospital admissions in the seven days up to 31 August 2026, an increase of 15 per cent on the previous week, with 289 confirmed patients in hospital on that date. [UKHSA data dashboard, COVID-19]

Receiving the boosters is now much more convenient. For a while, it seems, delivering the Covid jab was a niche activity that only a few pharmacies found profitable. In times past, beyond the first two years when I could go to a sequestered place in the town hall, the centres providing the service had progressively moved out of the town centre.

An AI-generated infographic on the blog content. (Click to enlarge.)

After the first three jabs, things moved further afield still to chemists out of town, so much so that it became rather more difficult to find ones that had the booster in stock to give it. Twice, I had booked appointments only to arrive to disappointment.

Back to the Surgery

On one occasion, I got the booster in a van on a large supermarket car park, and then last year, the Boots Chemist in the shopping precinct on Market Street started offering Covid jabs. Imagine my surprise when I got a message from my GP surgery that they could now deliver the jabs, once they had a sense of how many people needed it.

It should always have been managed through the primary care system at the GP surgery, and I am glad that is now the case. That it is back within the management of the surgery is, for me, the greater relief.

At the surgery you are seen by people who know your medical history and can access the critical information needed to support your treatment; the chemists and the vans cannot do that, for they can only register that you have taken the shot. The staff at the surgery are always attentive, professional, and helpful, and it is an easy place to fall into conversation with others.

Aftermath and Advice

I took the flu jab in my right arm and the Covid jab in my left arm. Both an aching arm and a headache registered their presence throughout the day, so much so that I spent most of it in bed until dusk, when I got up to have a meal. Brian, my partner, advised me to take Paracetamol, which I rarely do; I had hoped to sleep it off. It is only mild discomfort, yet it is energy-sapping, leaving you quite irritable and uncomfortable.

I hope I regain my verve for tomorrow. I know some people have advised against taking the booster shots, but they are not from the medical establishment, so I have paid them no heed. Meanwhile, if you are immunosuppressed and, or invited to take the flu jab, my advice is this: don't think twice about it. Get the protection for the winter ahead.

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From left to right in the north and south

Gerstmann syndrome occasionally

As I sit here, I remember from this afternoon the flu jab that I was reminded to come for from my GP surgery when I somewhat forgot I had booked a 9:36 AM appointment. I guess everyone had gone through and they had until 1:20 PM to do a sweep, the text message to my phone came in at 11:35 AM, polite and entreating, I got dressed, donned a facemask, and made my way to the surgery.

After the basic formalities, I was ushered into a treatment room where after a few questions, I was asked whether I was left or right-handed, though I am right-handed, I sometimes have a confusion of my left from my right. However, today I consciously offered my left arm, a good bit of muscle to impale with a hypodermic needle and with a little twitch in reaction, the dose was delivered and I was ready to leave.

Between the north and south

I had a question about travelling to the southern hemisphere in their wintertime considering I got a bit under the weather last year. Do I need a flu jab for the winter? I asked. There are differences in flu strains between the northern and the southern hemisphere, so, it is unlikely that getting a flu jab here can help, though in the main, it should offer some level of protection.

However, I should expect some discomfort in my arm which could last up to two days, though, now that I think of it, I was not given a leaflet for the jab I was given which I did get on receiving the vaccine the previous years. It will soon appear on the NHS app, and I can research it. I probably should take some Paracetamol with Caffeine; I might even have Paracetamol with Codeine stashed away too. Yeah! I ran the gamut of an intensive interrogation to get that when I asked for Codeine when I intended Caffeine.

NB: Gerstmann syndrome which includes left-right disorientation.

We're jabbing in the name of flu

We’re jabbing

On Wednesday afternoon I received a text message on my phone from the NHS on behalf of my GP’s surgery or maybe the other way round, it does not matter, I was being invited to the flu clinic on Saturday with a link attached to a registration website.

To those of us without Internet access, we were advised to key back a response of NOWEB, though I could not find any instruction for those without a phone. They might have received a letter instead.

In any case, I had 4 different online options to book my appointment, the NHS app, the Patient Access website, Evergreen Life (I have no idea who they are, but if they are selling the elixir of youth, that is worth an investigation), and myGP app. You could text a message or call a phone number after noon on a weekday.

What a surprise

I chose the NHS app and successfully booked an appointment for 9:03 AM, I had never seen so many appointment slots by the minute like I did on the calendar of appointments, the top, half, and quarters to and past the hour had been taken that the nearest I had to any of the cardinal clock points was 3 minutes past.

For a Saturday morning that requires a lie-in at the best of times, that was a tad early, but not by what I observed when I got to the surgery, a queue, a long queue about 10 deep and getting longer by the minute. Now, that is a first in my years of being a patient on this General Practitioner’s register.

Registration was prompt and conveyor belt-like, and soon a doctor, a doctor, yes, a doctor, for I have never met a doctor at my local surgery, nurses, many, receptionists indeed, but doctors were rarer than gold dust. My medical agenda is managed by hospital consultants for long-term care who instruct or inform my doctors of what other NHS services should be engaged.

The doctor was administering the flu jab when he asked if I wanted it in my left or right arm, I showed him my leg to which he quipped, interesting and rather unorthodox. I took the jab in my left arm and after a dab with cotton wool, I put my jacket on and made to leave.

I doggone got jabbed

Before stepping out of the surgery, I was given a leaflet, much like being given the menu after your meal. The flu jab is Flucelvax tetra, the tetra providing protection from 4 strains of influenza that the medical establishment thinks might be of concern in this flu season. Wisconsin, Washington, Cambodia, Tasmania, Darwin, Phuket, and Singapore are the well-travelled influenza viruses on the prowl for the vulnerable.

Meanwhile, the only side effect is the slight pain at the injection site, I returned home to rest, so the tiredness might have been catered for. The vaccine was prepared in cell cultures. Madin-Darby Canine Kidney cells to be exact and a cocker spaniel to boot. If we end up barking mad and I have not read the detail, I might just be another man’s best friend. I have been immunised.

Wiping out another World's Lost Tribe

The conquering might of strange diseases

We would never know the complete truth about how the conquistadors introduced the pox and syphilis to the tribes of the Americas that eventually wiped out swathes of indigenous and enduring civilisations in such a short time.

We are however left with the monuments and the historical heritage of peoples whose resourcefulness and genius still leaves us in bewilderment and wonder, all for the purposes of discovering new civilisations for the West.

Some would think these stories belong to centuries old folklore but the fact is there are still many undiscovered tribes in the far recesses of the world yet unexplored.

Seeking out others to wipe out

The next question would be if it is necessary for us to demand as we sit in the comfort of our homes channel-hopping between National Geographic and Discovery that these “lost” tribes be sought out and exposed to public scrutiny bordering on ridicule in the name of the quest for knowledge.

Recently, a television company – Cicada Films – involved in the production of a programme called World’s Lost Tribes for the Discovery Channel found themselves in this throwback that appears to have inflicted the discovered in remote Peru with a fatal flu that has killed four people and has a possibility of making the “Lost” tribe history.

They are not lost

For all intents and purposes, none of these tribes are lost, they have their place in the world just like we all do and they live off world and its resources according to their age-old traditions that might not align with ours.

They have a right to their unexplored corner of the world and we sometimes have to temper our curiosity with concern for the fact that our searching them out might be worse than inflicting upon them an incurable plague.

Can we help them?

If however, these people do get infected, there is no guarantee that our chemical potions that we call medicines would be efficacious in their undefiled bodies – running a medical emergency team into their communes might just do a lot more damage to their existence.

As it stands, there are accusations and denials, which are to be expected, but one cannot really say that the television company having seen more “modern” tribes in their journeys; they were not tempted to go to more remote areas to see the legends, the myths and ululate in the glory of bringing the curse of modernity to the blessing of remoteness.

Accessories to murder

In my view, if we were to discover these tribes from afar by chance, so be it, but when we venture into these areas, we must be self-quarantined to ensure that our curiosity does not kill what we are curious about.

Once again, we find people who exist in their cocoon of almost insignificant impact on the world bearing the brunt of intemperate modernity and dying to a cause that they never had the opportunity or power to avoid.

We are no less culpable and accessories to murder if we do not condemn these forays into the unnecessary to satisfy the questionable with the aim of entertainment better served by other issues involving the tribes we already know that roam our streets; the homeless, the helpless and the destitute.

We need to think about what we do in the search for knowledge of other civilisations.