'A taste of freedom' - What it's like having the Covid vaccine
Reporter George Sharpe talks about his jab, and what it means for the clinically vulnerable
Last updated 22nd Feb 2021
Last weekend I was due to watch my lovely fiancée walk down the aisle, dressed in a beautiful wedding dress. Instead, we spent the few days we'd booked off for our honeymoon at home.
By Monday morning we had a different cause for celebration when I turned my phone on to check my texts.
I am one of many people invited for the jab as the NHS enters the next phase of its vaccine rollout to the over-65's and the clinically vulnerable.
I have asthma and since the beginning of the pandemic have been worried about how the virus may affect my lungs - never sure how high the risk is to me.
For the last two months, we've all breathed sighs of relief as we hear about our elderly relatives receiving the vaccine.
But over the past week, it's become more normal to hear of friends and family being offered the jab.
Normality feels as though it isn't so far away, and maybe a trip to the shops isn't so scary anymore as over 17.5 million people have been given their first dose of the vaccine in the UK.
What was the jab like?
I had fully planned to speak to staff at the vaccine centre about how it felt to them - but I didn't get a chance. I turned up at 9am and by 9:03 I was sat in a waiting room. Five minutes later I had been vaccinated.
Apart from a sore arm, I experienced no side effects.
I was asked to wait 15 minutes and then was told I could leave. As I left I walked past a number of spacious waiting rooms. People of all ages were sat in chairs waiting for their jab.
We've all felt worried about whether we'll catch a bad case of the virus. Those of us in clinically vulnerable groups have been more so. I've been uncertain if my 28 years of age means the coronavirus will go easy on me, or if my asthma works against me.
Now I've had my first shot it's nice to have some certainty I'll not end up on a ventilator, causing a doctor the dreadful dichotomy of weighing up whether or not my treatment is worth another's life.
Leaving lockdown
The Prime Minister will address the nation today setting out his roadmap out of lockdown in England.
He's quoted calling his plan 'cautious but irreversible', putting hope in the vaccines ability to stem the tide of cases and prevent another spike in cases.
Whether or not that will happen remains to be seen with so many different strains of the virus popping up now.
But, my vaccine has given me hope that before too long I can watch Catherine walk down the aisle confident that we won't be putting ourselves or any of our loved ones at risk.