Friday 28^th May, 2021 1945

Inspection is now complete so everyone else can go back to whatever slovenly ways they had before. I kept calm and carried on.

It also seemed that the vaccination team had finished when we got to campus this morning. I started smelling a rat.

My middle class has a girl from Belarus in it (and yes, of course I simply had to tell her she wasn't allowed in my airspace!) but when I asked if everyone had been vaccinated they all said yes except her. Naturally I asked her why (knowing the probable answer) and she said that the school was making foreign students pay for their injections. Armed with the information from Our Man In Shanghai, I gaily informed her it was only 100¥ a pop. Nope, she was told by the doctor it was 250¥ a time! Oh.......right.

I don't think Jody has had hers yet and I certainly haven't so this evening I emailed Brenda to innocently enquire as to what news she had for teachers being inoculated.

Her answer could hardly have been further from what I expected, which was that probably I have to pay myself (which she in turn told me was 440¥ for both shots) but I couldn't have one.

I'm too old!!!

The over 60s are not being inoculated. Brenda's parents haven't been either.

Now the UK started with the fossils, worked down to the dinosaurs, moved onto the midlife crises brigade and I believe are now jabbing the 30s.

China appears to be doing the exact opposite.

There may be an OAP programme given time but for now I ain't getting it, although presumably if I wanted it now I would need to pay. No problem with paying but if I don't need it?

And think about this: I have never at any point been particularly concerned about the virus – foolhardy bravado perhaps – and if I was I would have run a mile and likely ended up leaping from the frying pan into the barbecue. One only has to look at Merca pulling all the Peace Corps volunteers back home to what became the worst possible place to be.

China is and always has been one of the safest places on the planet during this pandemic. They handled it better than the USA, UK, Europe and many other places. So why would I now criticise them for doing things in reverse order from the UK? They've done a pretty decent job so far.

I do however wonder what future implications there may be if I want to go “abroad” (by which I mean outside China) for a holiday if I haven't got the right medical status. Time will tell and by then I hope the testing doesn't involve huge cotton buds shoved up your hooter because that I do not want!