Get sent via text to a university building on the edge of town – a brand spanking new building sparkling in the midday sun and stand in a line that feeds through a double door into the building.
In the doorway, a woman takes temperatures and squeezes dollops of hand gel into palms. Take this and eat it; it is my body given up for you.
Give your name and get a piece of paper in return and told to join the end of another queue of people standing 2 meters apart, waiting to go in one of the cubicles where a masked jabber sits waiting.
In line, bemasked, no one interacts. This all feels highly efficient. Loads of staff. Little square stickers on the floor telling you where to stand. Move forward. Stop. Move forward. Stop. The lines feed into the cubicles.
I read the sheet they gave me: The Package Leaflet: Info for the recipient. COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca a solution for injection (ChAdOx1 – S[recombinant]) Quickly scan – turn over – for Possible Side Effects. Nothing surprising. Vomiting. Nothing about blood clots.
Move onto contents. One dose contains 5 x 1010 viral particles. ChAdox1 – S recombinant, replication-deficient chimpanzee (chimpanzee wtf!?) adenovirus vector encoding the SARS-Cov-2 spike glycoprotein. Produced in genetically modified human embryonic (wtf) kidney (seriously?) (HEK)293 cells.
I smile behind my mask and shake my head at the awesomeness and ridiculousness of it all. I love how I'm willing to go get injected with some colourless to slightly brown solution with genetically modified chimp cells because my phone told me to.
Then a woman says, 'Next,' and I look round and she's looking at me. 'Me?' I say, pointing at my chest. 'Yes. Come this way.' I follow her into a cubicle and sit. She sits and says her name's Zoe and asks a bundle of adminny questions and I take off my jacket and roll up my sleeve for this 'historic moment,' I say and she smiles and says it back to me then rips open a plastic pack and extrudes a disposable needle.
'Take this,' she says, 'and drink it. This is my blood given up for thee.' And plunges the needle in and rams the hammer home and pumps me full of killer chimp cells and all I can think about is zombie movies and conspiracy theories, news headlines and the chaos behind the innocuous act of mass inoculation.
Then it's over – just a prick – didn't even feel it and I'm pulling on my jacket saying, 'Thanks. Thanks for what you're doing here; it's awesome,' and she's not even looking at me but wiping the seat down for the next schmuck.
No comments:
Post a Comment