To consider paying for a private Covid immunisation?

[CherubEarrings]

I am in my 60s but not clinically vulnerable but travel on public transport and everyone is coughing and sneezing. I have had it twice and was unwell both times.

Anyone else considering it? It is £100

Fine, I’ll settle for not dying any day.

What I find unreasonable is the NHS charging for the vaccine

You can still book it free on the NHS booking site if you meet the criteria, @PeloMom We’ve booked ours for tomorrow. I read somewhere though that tomorrow is the last day you can (which is why we booked).

@CherubEarrings I'm same era as you getting over COVID was like a summer cold and I'm asthmatic.

Husband had the jab in the spring. His COVID has been a lot worse.

I'm considering paying for it in the autumn, as well as paying for the flu vaccine - it seems to make sense to do them both when we're about to spend more time huddled indoors. Also early 60s, also not vulnerable, but it seems a long time since I've had a booster.

What tests are people using these days?

I’m glad I found this thread, I didn’t realise private Covid vaccinations were available! I was losing hope they were ever going to be made available, will be definitely be seeking to get this ahead of autumn.

Loads of people have Covid even in summer, and that’s just people who are testing and not including people that think they have a cold haven’t ruled out Covid.

I've had all the NHS vaccines I'm entitled to (at 61), but still chose to pay for a private one and, as I said earlier, have Covid now. I'm feeling rough, but evidence is that without the vaccine/boosters I'd be worse. And for under £100, that's worthwhile for me.
I tested (a leftover NHS test) as I needed to go to hospital for a blood test before surgery and the hospital mainly has patients who are considerably older than me. I didn't expect it to be positive, and it's meant I've had to cancel the surgery next week that I've waited for for ages. But that's life. I could have said nothing and gone anyway, but I know how I'd feel about other people putting vulnerable people at risk.
Nobody ever said the vaccine would stop Covid, it's about minimising the effects. And for all the people who've said they've been vaccinated and had Covid and felt terrible, my guess is they'd have felt even worse without it.
Vaccination (against any disease) is one of the greatest gifts we can get. Ask older family members what they remember about diphtheria, scarlet fever etc being killers.

Do you really not qualify for an NHS one? I’m early 40s and not CEV and I had it with my flu jab in the autumn on the NHS. I’m asthmatic but not the CEV sort of asthmatic.

That said, I’m the only one in the household who got a COVID jab this year and I’m the only one who got COVID. Neither dc is vaccinated and dh only had the first 2, but not the 3rd. None of them got it from me. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I am generally very pro-vax but I truly felt worse from the jab than from COVID. I don’t think I’ll even get it next year.

The private vaccinations seem to have been kept on the down-low. I suspect to prevent too much "them and us" talk. But there are places in the UK, in areas that are deprived, where ANYONE can walk into a pharmacy and get a free one. So honestly, I don't feel terrible that I could pay for it.

I would look around. I paid for the Pfizer vaccination in April and it was £80.

My father qualified on the NHS and the rest of the family all paid as they felt it was wise to protect him/us as a unit.

I travel regularly on the tube. I think it does put you at heightened risk. It’s probably the one time I am very close to the “masses”.

If you can afford it I definitely would. A person has just been paid off from my work due to having long Covid. They were so vivacious until they got ill 😔.

Anything you can do to protect yourself and loved ones is worth doing in my opinion.

I haven’t read the full thread but I know so many people, myself included who have had covid in the last few weeks where the symptoms started exactly like hay fever!! I had a bit of a runny nose and lots of sneezes for a few days and then it put me in bed with body aches and chills.

OP I know 4 people over 80 who had close contact with symptomatic people, one of them was staying in the same holiday house where everyone else had Covid and they didn’t have it because they’d had a vaccine recently.

If you’ve got the money and you especially don’t want to be unwell then go for it!

Covid is rife at the moment with a really nasty new strain. I'm a nurse in a medical receiving unit and we have been swamped for the last 3 weeks. About 50% of our admissions have been people very unwell with Covid. I've spend my day caring for 4 of them today.

For most people now covid will be a mild, although unpleasant illness. By the autumn, some of the seasonal colds could make people feel just as poorly.

We don't test for every cold and have learned that we need to look after ourselves, stay away from work when necessary and stay away from elderly & immunocompromised people as far as possible.

The NHS will rightly only pay for vaccines for people who are clinically vulnerable. The rest of us need to decide if the risk / inconvenience of being unwell is worth the cost of additional protection.

Personally, I think travelling on public transport or working closely with the public would be good reasons to consider it. I'm encouraging my teacher DC to get it done.

I honestly have no idea, or if she was even right about this, or if she has decided for herself not to put the word "covid" on sick notes, or has been told not to, and if so, by whom. I don't understand this at all - and was too unwell at the time to even care

Never had one, never will. When will people open their bloody eyes.

Because a lot of people are immunocompromised and need immediate antivirals if they get covid?

Quite obvious really

not just my GP then!

Same reason they don't write flu, unless lab test proves it, they will write viral illness as they have no definite proof which viral illness it is! 🤦

my dad and dh had the Moderna a while back. Dad was ill for a week after. Dh is still not better after eight weeks but has a life limiting disease. He’s decided he’s not having another one and will take his chances getting COVID as most we know say it’s just a cold.

but their tests proved covid!

why don't you look at the death rates with and without vaccines? You are the one with your eyes shut

I most certainly am not. But it's not even worth explaining to people who are so keen to trust these people who are one by one being exposed as liars.

There's a lot of covid about right now and it seems to be a particularly nasty strain.
The vaccine is tweaked every year like the flu jab. I had a booster this week and it was moderna which I haven't had before. It floored me for 24 hours, but then so does a flu jab and that's not a good enough reason not to have one.
I get a booster twice a year as vulnerable. I still got covid in April though.
I've pondered a lot about how effective the vaccine is. I had covid (delta) in 2021 and was seriously ill in hospital and took 3 months to recover. Thankfully no long COVID. I got it again a few months later and it was trivial. That could have been antibodies from my infection or the fact that omicron is a wholey different and less dangerous strain.
I had it a 3rd time in April and was pretty unwell for two weeks and took a month to get back to normal.
So does the vaccine help?
Most people won't have had one for 2 or 3 years now but are likely to have had covid and get some immunity from that. On balance I think it may help and I will continue to take whatever is offered. If I wasn't offered it I would pay.

Yes you are. The Covid vaccine doesn’t immunise you from Covid. You still get it just like the unvaccinated. If you are happy with a possible side effect of death, stroke, blood clot, neurological issues, shingles go right ahead. Please don’t though.