Come and get vaccinated in Serbia. You can apply online. Although you'd only get one or two days of notice before the appointment.
In the last Covid peak in Jan/Feb, a local ICU doctor who runs a blog made the point that yes, far fewer older people were in critical care, possibly because they'd had their first dose of vaccine (or else those who'd not already been infected before were being extremely careful) but those becoming seriously ill and dying were 40s, 50s and early 60s, and there were also very sick people in their 20s. The case numbers had been allowed to spiral out of the control, maybe in the belief that now that those considered most at risk had some protection, severe illness wasn't as likely. Covid had other ideas. As soon as the case numbers climbed, the number of hospitalisations, intensive care admissions and deaths kept pace. I'm just hoping they're not about to make the same mistake all over again, telling everyone to pack back into offices, pubs, gyms and coffee shops, and go and party with friends.
I've no doubt that headline grabbing and national oneupmanship matters to someone.
What my sister did was to contact her GP practice who told her that if she didn't take up anything before, she would eventually be offered an appointment at the local hospital - which she can get to easily on her mobility scooter. So she's holding on for that. Thing is, this Covid Recovery Group (or whatever they're called) has been saying that people who decline to have the vaccine (I assume excepting the folk who can't have it for some reason) should accept they've chosen to take a risk and shouldn't expect the rest of the world to change their lives to protect them. And I basically agree: if they're only counting people who have actually said no. If they end up also counting people who have not taken up impractical offers for miles away because it's simply not possible for them to get there, then I'm worried. I just hope that by approaching it proactively, my sister has prevented herself from dropping off the radar.
That was what I found most upsetting about the original lockdown - it came across like "naughty children - go to your rooms". In other words, you're not nobly sacrificing your liberties for the good of all, you're being punished because you deserve to be punished. Truth was Boris and his idiot mate Hancock didn't have any better ideas, so they seized an excuse to make it look like it was our fault and the way it was initially enforced also reinforced this message. No wonder everyone's mental health took a dive ...
Yes, this is exactly what worries me about it. I'm sure there are people who consciously reject any offer of a vaccine, but then those who fall through the net just could be lumped into the 'can't be bothered or doesn't want it' category. The government is utterly obsessed with indoctrinating a 'self-serve' mentality, even extending that where it's totally inappropriate and unethical.
