My 80-year-old mother-in-law was one of the people contacted in the past week to receive a Covid vaccine (138,000 people in UK receive Covid vaccine in first week, 16 December). Taking her to the vaccination centre on Wednesday was a more emotional experience than I expected it to be.
Only those being vaccinated were allowed in the building, so I waited outside, watching the queue. A slow procession of elderly or otherwise vulnerable people arrived for their appointments, some being helped out of taxis or up the ramp in wheelchairs, one by one giving their names to be checked off on a list and ushered inside by staff. It was simultaneously mundane and remarkable – ordinary moments of individual healthcare combined with an extraordinary moment of public health triumph.
I stood outside in the drizzle thinking that this is what heroism looks like: the methodical work of the medical staff here as well as those who developed the vaccines. I was so overcome with emotion that I ran next door and bought some big boxes of Cadbury’s Heroes, and asked one of the people going in to give them to the staff. I hope the message got through.
Jennifer Linden
Professor of neuroscience, University College London
