Vaccine!

How amazing that I as a foreigner could receive the Covid vaccine here in Peru! I went the first day it was available in Abancay for those under 30-39.  For such a large age-group I thought the queue would be horrendous, so I went an hour before they opened and it wasn't too bad. The whoel thing took about 4 hours so I still had some Saturday left.

 

Peru uses various vaccines depending on availability, and some are not accepted in the UK.  Of course you are not told which you'll get before you go, as they don't want people to pick and choose.  "The best vaccine is the one that's in your arm."  As I queued I was thinking about travel requirements and my next trip to the UK (whenever that may be) - if I get a vaccine that isn't recognised by the NHS, I potentially could need more quarantining and 2 more vaccine doses when I visit!  But I decided that my reason for being vaccinated is not to make my own life and travel easier - rather it's to reduce the risk for the people that I travel with and stay with in my work.  If there's a downside, ok I accept that as part of the "sacrifice" of being a missionary.

And after all that soul-searching, prayer and self-sacrifice: it was Pfizer! 

I still can't get it registered in the UK yet as it was administered overseas, but the NHS is working out a system for that.  At least it's registered in the Peruvian system and I managed to get them to change my country of origin from British Virgin Islands back to United Kingdom (quite an understandable error when my documents say my nationality is "British"!)

2 days ago I had my second dose. Slightly more pain but a lot less queueing.