Coronavirus - COVID-19

Helen said speak to your GP. How? The surgery don't answer the phone, you can wait an hour and still get no answer, you can no longer walk into the surgery waiting rooms to book an appointment. The only way to talk to someone down here is to dial 999 and you get a paramedic.

Send them an email and ask them to phone her or give her a time to phone them. Put 'urgent pacemaker problem' as the subject.

Just a quick one on being selfish and stupid to the highest degree. On one of the wards this week a gentleman was admitted with breathing difficulties. He was tested for Covid and sent for analysis. He had stated he had had both his jabs. Now, his family of three turn up. Funny really, as visitors are not allowed. Within one hour they are moved into a side ward because it turns out the gentleman in question had got Covid and had not had his jabs. The rest of the patients, now whittled down to two, are in quarantine until they can go home. The ward will then under go a deep clean and then remain shut for a further two weeks. What a selfish family, a whole ward shut down for three weeks when there is already a shortage of beds. I cannot say what I really feel, there are no words I could put into print.

Scrutiny, Yes, and they walk among us then expect all the help they are given. Not caring for the rest of us who take every step to keep safe. I can imagine your feelings over that incident. Ours are voices in the wilderness which fall on deaf ears of the Covidiots.

My response to those that I think are being irresponsible in public is to openly stand well clear of them and if they try to talk to me move away telling them I cannot interact with them. In other words ostracise those people. I think that if enough people do so they will eventually get the message. (l apologise to all those members still in the city but I send them to Coventry).

The trouble is you cannot identify who these idiots are, without a direct challenge and you know the infantile reaction you would get. I live in America and every day we see these dummies on their deathbed in hospital begging for the vaccine and telling us how they wish they had listened to science instead of of conspiracy theories. Sorry, too late!!!

This morning we received the results of yesterday's swab test, thankfully we were both negative, so tomorrow we set off back to the UK after more that 18 months confined in the Philippines by the constant stream of new rules, restrictions, requirements and regulations. We can't fly direct from such a 'red list' country, or rather we're unwilling to pay the £3,715 charge to do so, thus we spend ten days in 'orange list' Dubai on the way. Unfortunately that entails another four swab tests despite us both being fully vaccinated.

Many of you may have been vaccine boosted by now but if not, be alert that the government is planning on dropping the booster date to 5 months after the 2nd jab. At the moment you can theoretically book your appointment 1 week before you're due (6 months) but on average the appointment won't be for 18 days! If the limit is dropped, lots of people will rush for the spots and that gap will probably widen. I was due for mine a week from Monday but I was able to book mine this morning and the earliest appointment was for the 12th. A relative is due on the 17th and couldn't yet book so the plan hasn't been updated yet. So if you're due soon or already due and want to be in the right place in the queue, book it as soon as you can. Your GP's surgery website may tell you more, and mine directed me to Patient Access to get a login and connect to my GPs services. A bit fiddly to fill in the forms but it offered me optional appointments to get pin cushioned. At the moment the plan for reducing the time limit is only in the tabloids but when it hits the BBC the rush will be on.

I do not know if I have missed something? Are you back in England mcsporran?

Yes scrutiny, we're back. When our original return flight was cancelled last year, the travel agent quoted a mere £60 refund each. Fortunately (for us) this year they went bust so we had to contact the airline and they gave us back £210 each. No problem with the flights, the first was near empty, we had a row of four seats each to spread out, then an enjoyable stopover in Dubai although unfortunately too early for the Expo 2020 opening. We survived 11 days there with no phone, no currency, no Arabic, just a debit card, contactless limit was £120. The Birmingham flight though was surprisingly packed. Finally 10 days isolated at home and the last two PCR swab tests. After 19 months away our UK phone SIMs had expired through non-use and our landline had been retired when our son and daughter switched us to cable internet. What has become of the UK in our absence, queues for petrol, panic buying toilet rolls, a lorry driver shortage, even our energy supplier went bust? Now we find our jabs (Astra-Zeneca) aren't recognised, they can't even be added to our medical records, so we won't be getting booster jabs.

mcsporran, you've really been through it Since booster jabs are Moderna or Pfizer you could persuade your GP to give you one of them as your 'first' and if you were having trouble accessing places you could get your 'second' in a few months. It's not like you need a booster after that.

Hi Helen, Thanks for your suggestion. I've tried speaking to our GP surgery, their response is that they don't do anything related to Covid, and we should call 119. That is no help at all, they just pass you to another team and so on until they eventually admit they don't have a procedure for foreign (even Scottish) vaccinations. I was interested in your mention of Patient Access, I'd never heard of it and need to find more about what it does, I hope it's not just another organisation that wants your name, address, email and phone numbers to be stored in yet another disjointed database to be used for unspecified purposes. As far as I can work out we can only get a booster by invite, and that is only after 6 months, our second jabs were in August, so that will be next year; hopefully by then the process will be properly worked out. I believe Astra may be offered at some point.

Have you tried registering as never having had one at all? Patient Access won't help if your GP hasn't signed up for it, but yes it does seem geared to just collect your data. For me it was the only way to book my booster. Try this gov site This link won't help if they offer you Astra as you don't need another of those. Can you find a drop in clinic in your area as they may be easier to explain your situation to? They're doing drop ins with Pfizer for kids. If your last jab was August you should be ok at the moment but you might want the Pfizer sometime in the winter.

That's got me a bit worried - my wife and I live in Australia and have had both Astra jabs, in April and July. My mother and sister both live in the Coventry area, and if anything were to happen to them I would hope to be able to come over to do whatever I can. Does this mean that our jabs wouldn't be recognised on arrival to the UK, and we'd have to quarantine?

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/travel-to-england-from-another-country-during-coronavirus-covid-19 The rules are not the same across the UK, so if you fly into one of the other regions check their policies. Australia's certificates are ok but be a little careful if you stop off en route to the UK. The problem adding foreign vaccination status to NHS records is a separate issue.