ith vaccines getting a bad rap in some dark corners of the web these days, it’s worth pointing out just what they have protected us all from over the years.

Cholera, hepatitis, Japanese encephalitis, measles, meningitis, mumps, pertussis, pneumonia, polio, rabies, rotavirus, rubella, tetanus, tuberculosis, typhoid, varicella, yellow fever, ano-genital cancer and warts.

And now, all going swell, that bastard Covid-19.

As the straight-talking Dr Phil Hammond explained in his regular Private Eye column, ‘The chances of having short or long-term serious side effects for existing vaccines is roughly one in 25,000. The chances of having life-threatening side effects if roughly one in 1,000,000. This compares to one in 250 and one in 10,000 for a course of antibiotics, making vaccines roughly 100 times safer to take than, say, penicillin.

‘And much less harmful than lockdown.’

So, despite the fact that every single medical intervention comes with a degree of risk, GG’s going to be first in line for that Covid-19 vaccine. The makers of Viagra, if Pfizer can raise the dead they can surely help the living.

Turns out, our place in line is somewhere in August and September. And if you’d like to know when your jab is a-comin’, you can check it out on this Vaccine Queue Calculator here.

Not entirely sure of the accuracy, but, still worth checking out.

With young Donnelly expected four million people vaccinated here by September, you can check out the daily Covid-19 numbers for Ireland here.