Covid vaccination certificates

are now being required in some places.

I went to see the Senior Cat yesterday - and will go again today. It is usually Middle Cat who goes on Tuesdays but there was mail he needed to know about. Along with more mail I took from the letter box there was a reminder from a group house (for people with disabilities) that  vaccination certificates would be required before people could enter. 

I was at the meeting where this was discussed. Two of the residents in the group house cannot get vaccinations of any sort. They are vulnerable in all sorts of ways. The other residents have been vaccinated. Their care staff are all supposed to be vaccinated. It isn't something I can check on and it is not my responsibility to do it either. But the residents wanted to know how they could help to keep each other safe and that was one of the measures they decided they wanted to put in place.

One of the care staff tried to argue against it. He claimed it could lead to staffing issues. I suspect he has not been vaccinated yet - and might not want to be vaccinated at all. Fortunately he was the only person to vote against the measure.

I was thinking about this as I pedalled over to see the Senior Cat. The residence has had to put new measures in place recently. There are two reasons for this, the first being we have had some more Covid19 cases. The second is that the residence has been taken over by a group which runs a number of hospitals as well. 

Middle Cat had already warned me that the front door is no longer "open to go in".  We have always had to put a code into a key pad to go out but, during the week, it has simply been a matter of opening the door. Now we have to wait for a phone to be answered and someone to push a button somewhere inside in order to get in. 

As soon as I heard that I thought, "And the next thing they will want are our vaccination certificates." I went through the hoops and downloaded mine. I took it with me. 

"C... do you want our vaccination certificates yet?" I asked the secretary-receptionist. 

"Oooh if you already have it that would be great." 

I passed it over and a few minutes later she gave me a small card to replace it. I prowled off down the long passage to see the Senior Cat and told him. He approved. We sorted out some action on the mail. His mind went back to the small card.

"I wonder if one card will do or whether you might need more than one?"

"I don't know but I'll have the certificate and my proof of age card," I told him. (A proof of age card has a photo on it. I have one because I don't have a licence to drive.) 

It was a thought though. I went around to the group house and one of the care staff let me in. I showed A... the card I had been given.

"They should do right across the system," she told me."The rest of us need something like that."

And then, late yesterday afternoon, I went to drop off a pullover I had mended to someone in another nursing home. There was nobody in reception although I could hear voices in the office. I signed in and delivered the pullover before extracting myself - with some difficulty - from those who wanted me to stay and chat. 

V... was back at her desk. "Hi Cat. I knew you were here. We are going to need vaccination certificates from next Monday."

I produced mine and the card. She took a copy of both and said, "I was just talking to the boss. That card will do here."

Thank goodness for that - but I was beginning to wonder whether I would need to carry a forest load of cards around.