After an absence of eighteen months I finally went back to London for work. And despite packing two right shoes for my trip, it helped conquer my fears.
The city felt as if it was on the cusp of normality. But yet it is not normal.
Public transport requires face coverings but only half of those using the Tube wore masks. Thankfully the trains were not full but enforcement of mask wearing was non-existent. I had an opportunity to dine 100ft above the 02 Arena and it felt amazing to be in the open air and mask free.
And yet I never felt fully comfortable.
My hands were continually sanitised to laboratory standards. I didn’t actually go into any bars. The fear of Covid and its variants still pervades my mind.
Crowded bars with coughing and spluttering revellers is the stuff of my nightmares.
The public seem to forget that vaccination is only one part of a series of measures in order to minimise the risks from Covid. Public health messaging is poor.
Already we are reading horror stories of the unvaccinated either dying, coming close to death or infecting their own families because they refused to get the jab. They now admit their own reticence and hesitancy about the vaccines was a huge mistake.
The truth is there is no cure for stupidity or a silver bullet to rid us of ignorance.
We take scores of over the counter and prescribed medicines and drugs without ever knowing what is in them, and yet don’t question it. The same goes for much of the processed food we eat.
Colum Eastwood, the SDLP leader, has called for vaccine passports for pubs and restaurants. He added there should be compulsory vaccines (medical reasons apart) for those working in care homes and hospitals.
He is not only right but he is stating the bleeding obvious.
There will be no normality for any of us if we allow the collapse of the NHS through the stupidity of some and the obstinacy of others.
Some senior unionists have resisted the concept of vaccine passports. As do some in the Sinn Féin leadership.
Remarkably these opponents can find common ground in opposition to something which public health policy actually requires. If you want proof of the vacuum in political leadership there it is in black and white.
Of course, if calamity does strike the health service with a new wave of the pandemic, these very same politicians will bicker and blame others as they rush to close the stable door - after the virus has bolted.
We deserve better than this. Frontline workers in the health service deserve better than this. It’s their lives which are at risk from those who refuse the vaccination.
And for that matter, workers in the health service who refuse the Covid vaccination are putting their colleagues and patients at risk too. That over 60 per cent of Covid patients requiring hospital treatment are unvaccinated seems almost unbelievable. It is truly staggering.
It makes even more sense within the care home sector to implement the fullest preventative measures including the vaccination of all staff.
The care home industry suffered a dreadful toll of death when the pandemic first struck and so much has been done since to protect residents that it is pure folly to allow safety to lapse due to unfounded fears of the vaccine. Given the debate about the cost of social care the least families can expect is that their loved ones are not exposed to undue risk from unvaccinated staff when placed in residential care.
Michelle O’Neill, the deputy first minister, knows first hand the devastating impact of the virus. The time has arrived for a clear and unambiguous message from the executive.
Throughout the pandemic enforcement was by and large light touch but now, if there are those still willing to put others at risk, vaccination passports must be seen as not a personal choice but a civic obligation.
