Covid-19 vaccine volunteer shares experience of day working at STEAM museum

If there is something we have all felt from our different Covid-19 experiences over the last year, it is surely a profound sense of powerlessness.

But after spending a couple of shifts as a volunteer at the vaccine centre at STEAM, I’m glad to report what feels like a proper fightback.

I spent a morning helping to marshal cars in the car park, plus an afternoon working indoors, seeing how the system worked at what is literally the sharp end.

All vaccinations are strictly by appointment only, and after registering at reception, patients are allocated one of ten lanes in which they queue –usually briefly – before passing between screens to sit at the vaccination tables.

After the jab, each person then goes to a waiting area, where they have to sit for 15 minutes while medical staff ensure there are no ill effects (which is thankfully rare).

Finally they go out through a separate exit, and the whole thing is over in sometimes as little as 25 minutes.

On my day on duty, arrangements were made for a small number of key workers to get the vaccination there, but the vast majority of the 1,200 patients were over 80.

They obviously have a range of individual capabilities and mobility issues, so although many come on their own, they may bring a relative, carer or other helper, who is allowed to be with them from start to finish.

Outside it was the wettest, windiest and most miserable afternoon of the year - the car park volunteers had really drawn the day’s short straw - but everyone turning up to get their vaccine brought their own ray of sunshine.

That’s how tangible their relief was at finally being offered a get-out-of-jail-free card after nearly a year of being told how vulnerable they are, patiently waiting indoors and sticking rigidly to the rules.

It was particularly touching to see so many couples turning up to get their injections together.

Part of my job was to check that nobody was suffering any Covid-19 symptoms, which some thought was a daft question as they explained that they hadn’t been anywhere, or been closeenough to anybody, to get the virus.

Some pointed out that, in fact, it was the first trip of any kind they had taken since last March.

No wonder many were in their Sunday best, as if set for a grand day out.

One lady told me her father was a hundred years old and unsteady on his feet, and then nearly had to run after him, to catch him up, such was his eagerness to get his injection.

A nurse pointed out that as well being a physical challenge, for some it was a psychological one too, all those months in lockdown or shielding creating a very real anxiety about venturing back into the outside world again.

Whatever concerns, doubts or fears any of them might have had, however, it was heartwarming to find most people so buoyant and recharged, and full of good humour.

And after passing through the process, I doubt any of them had seen many better examples of friendly efficiency in their whole lives.

That is all the more remarkable because the operation has thrown together people from a number of different sectors: Council workers; volunteers, either from the Council or other sources; admin and clinical staff from surgeries, and not necessarily from only one surgery at a time; along with many others, and all working with STEAM employees more used to running a museum than a clinic.

It sounds like a recipe for chaos, but turned out to be the proverbial well-oiled machine.

There is a long way to go before we all get our Covid jabs, and I expect calls will grow for the rollout to be stepped up.

Only a fool would underestimate the scale of the challenge and how long it is going to take, or expect it to go without some hitches.

But each new injection administered at STEAM is not just a potentially lifesaving vaccine.

It also comes with a healthy dose of optimism for brighter times ahead.