jabbed!

Believe me, this was worth driving 900 miles for!  OK, we ache all over (and not from the driving), and expect to sleep like logs, but the sense of relief at having had Jab 1 is extraordinary.  And even if we haven't seen so many people for eleven months as we did today in Keck Hospital of USC, it was all very smoothly managed.  Roll on three weeks time, for Pfizer dose #2.

Of course, I'm not at all immune to the ironies of privilege: that the job that allows me to teach and chair a department from the warm safety of my own home is also one that means that, as a (suitably aged) patient of USC's medical system, I have efficient and ready access to the vaccine.  OK - I'll rephrase that - I was hovering over the computer like a hungry Cooper's Hawk waiting for the sign up link to turn up - but in turn that's privilege: access to fast internet; time to hawkishly hover.  Should a front line worker (of any age) be vaccinated before me?  Undoubtedly - and indeed, very many of the people in today's line, and occupying today's chairs, were health services workers getting their second shot; and I'm proud of USC that they have also been letting the families of essential hospital workers - the cleaners, the porters, and so on - be vaccinated too.  But were either of us going to turn this chance down?  Of course not.  We just want as many people as possible to have the same feeling of relief, as soon as possible.