The pandemic is still raging. We are in the midst of the impact of the Delta variant….. and Lamba lurks in South America. Along with increased knowledge of the Greek alphabet, it means that we may have to accommodate continued change as we prepare for a new school year.
During the early summer, my teenage daughter and her friends became eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine and our town set up a vaccine station in our local park. On the first day, two hundred 12-17 year olds turned up and formed a rudimentary queue. My daughter’s sensory issues mean that queues don’t work well for us. An intensity of teenagers brings noise, random social distancing, unpredictability as well as increased anxiety.
A quiet word with the nurse on duty solved our problem. She said wait in the car, make your daughter comfortable and we will vaccinate her there. So my daughter sat in the car watching YouTube on my iPhone and before she knew it she had received her first jab. We repeated this exercise three weeks later. It was remarkably painless.
Vaccines work and being protected meant that masks weren’t required during summer school, which made her so happy. Wearing a mask if you have sensory issues can be extremely exacting. We at NNF are a team of scientists and medical professionals and urge you all to consider a Covid-19 vaccine. We have reviewed the data around these vaccines in depth, and we wouldn’t risk our and our families’ health and safety unless we were convinced they were safe and effective. As a dad, I also recognise that the process of getting one can be really challenging to the autistic community – but sometimes a quiet word to the right person can make the impossible possible. And so I also want to thank the nurses who were so wise and understanding, and who helped make this process literally painless for us.