My First Vaccine Tomorrow

Tomorrow at 10am I go for my first vaccine. To be honest it was easier to find FA Cup Final tickets than get myself a vaccine appointment. I was tipped off last week that the PAC in Palma Nova were allowing you to book an appointment without them calling you or booking an appointment online. A couple of my friends had done it and so off I went to see if I could. On entering I asked the lady behind the counter if I could book an appointment for a vaccine. Yes she said, depending on how old you are and the year that you were born. After answering that (54 years old and 1966 by the way) she said please show me your PAC card. At that point, it all halted as I wasn’t registered there she said I needed to go to Santa Ponsa where I was registered. So I hot footed it to Santa Ponsa only to be told that they don’t book appointments off the street, either I wait for a phone call or I book one online. It begs the question why one medical centre was prepared to do it but another wasn’t? Not to be defeated I waited until last Monday when the appointments online were made to people within my age group. Now you would think that as they’ve had at least a year to think about this, then it would be an all singing and all dancing website. One for ease of course, but two to encourage people to go online and book it. Well it might not surprise you to know that it wasn’t quite like that. I can’t tell you how many times it crashed but I must have sat there for at least a couple hours without managing to get the end. There were four stages I seem to remember and it crashed on pretty much all of them. In the end I gave up but thought that as I was up early in the morning for my radio show I would try then. That morning it was a breeze to get through. The only problem I incurred was that Son Dureta didn’t have any appointments so I tried another centre at German Escalas and up popped appointments all day. 

I posted it on my Facebook and it was good to see lots of other people managing in the end to get appointments. 

So the moral of the story is keep trying and it will work eventually. I see there now up to anybody born from 1971 and before. Keep an eye on the site as it keeps adding dates. 

Since all this started and it became apparent that the vaccine was the way forward, I was happy to have it. Now this is about choice and you can choose if you want it or not. I have no problem in taking it as long as it allows me the freedom to go back to what I was used to before. It’s no coincidence that the UK’s numbers have declined ever since they have rolled out their very successful vaccination programme. 

Here in Spain we are still behind other countries which could effect us particularly if the UK decide we have not got enough of the population vaccinated to pass into the Green zone. I said last week we need to be considered separately than the mainland. Listen they’ve looked after themselves all through this so let us get on with it too. 

The situation right now is that in the whole of Spain, 30% of the population have had one jab and 14% have two jabs. 

In Mallorca, 25% have had one dose and 11% have had two doses. When I did these numbers a couple of weeks ago we ranked 17th and last in all of the autonomous regions of Spain, with only the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla below us. We still do. It’s rubbish I know but it’s important that we keep the pressure on so if you can keep trying different ways to get your vaccine. I still believe that by the end of June we will be in the green zone from the UK. It’s great to see the island with a bit more life and it’s quite a novelty to be able to go out nearly all the time now. 

Temperatures are going to hit the highest they’ve been all year this weekend, so….

Take care everyone and enjoy your Weekend! 

Richie presents the Radio One Mallorca Breakfast show Monday to Friday 07.30-11.00am on 93.8fm in Mallorca and 102fm in Calvià, online at www.radioonemallorca.com on mobile through their free App for IPhone & Android, The Tunein Radio App, iTunes, the Spanish TDT TV service and all smart speakers. If you can’t hear him on the radio then you’ll find him working at Pirates Adventure the islands number one night out and every now and again he may make an understudy appearance! 

Follow him on Twitter @DadTaxi1 & Instagram @dad.taxi or feel free to email him at rprior@globobalear.com