Covid-19 Big-name recipient gets vaccine effort under way
THE first person from the Gloucestershire community to receive the Covid vaccine shares the same name as the discoverer of penicillin, Alexander Fleming.
Although he confirmed he had no connection to the Nobel Prize-winning physician, Mr Fleming said he was from the same part of Scotland.
Coronavirus vaccinations started being given to patients across Gloucestershire from GP surgeries yesterday (Wednesday) as part of the next stage of the programme’s rollout.
Five locations are being used across the county, including The Devereux Centre in Tewkesbury, where Mr Fleming received the vaccine at about 8.30am.
Mr Fleming, 82, said he noticed no difference between the Covid and flu vaccinations and has urged people to get protected “while they have the chance”.
He was among the first in the vaccine priority groups in the community, starting with the over-80s. Last week saw Gloucestershire hospitals’ staff and front-line health and care teams given vaccinations.
Mr Fleming said: “There was nothing to it. You just sit there patiently. I have learned through the years that patience is a big thing. I did not used to have it but I do a bit more now.”
He said he “didn’t feel it” when given the vaccine, and stressed there was no difference between the Covid and flu inoculations.
He added that he would continue to remain cautious in his daily life, even when he has received the second jab.
“I am definitely carrying on the way I am,” he said. “I am not thinking ‘I am getting a second injection – seven days after that I can go anywhere’. I do not believe in that. You still have to be careful for other people as well as yourself.
“You could spread it still; you do not know. You have got to be conscious of yourself in society.”
Mr Fleming had a message for people unsure about whether to be vaccinated.
He said: “If you get the offer of having the vaccine and you do not take it, and you get coronavirus, what are you going to think? You wish you had it done? So it will be better to have it done and hope you are going to be clear of it.
“I will say to anybody ‘take it while you get the chance’. There are lot of people younger than us who wish they can get it now.”
As well as the Devereux Centre in Barton Road, other places where people can get vaccinated are Cheltenham East Fire Station, North Cotswold Hospital (Moreton-in-marsh), Rosebank Surgery (Gloucester) and Vale Community Hospital (Dursley).
In these five locations, the NHS hopes to administer 975 jabs by the end of this week.
Other venues in Churchdown, Stroud, Cirencester and the Forest of Dean are likely to be confirmed later this week, the NHS has said.
Local GP Dr Jeremy Welch said “Patients will be invited in. Please just do not turn up because it is a very coordinated invitation process. Everyone will get their turn.”
As for that famous name, Mr Fleming said he never asked his parents if they had named him after the famous physicist.
“We had famous names in our class at school, so we did not think anything of it,” he said.