Plymouth pensioner ends months of isolation to get her first Covid-19 vaccine
A pensioner from Plymouth has received the Covid-19 vaccine having been isolating in her top floor flat for most of the past year.
70-year-old Chrissie Hine said she felt anxious, then relieved as she joined more than one million people to have had the first of two jabs.
"I didn't feel a thing to be honest," she said. "I am needle-phobic, so I was expecting it to hurt, but I was waiting for it and then she had done it."
For almost a year now, ITV News West Country has been following Chrissie's Covid story.
From lockdown in her flat on the top floor of a tower block; to stepping outside for her first breath of fresh air in summer; to receiving her jab and feeling ready to face the next chapter.
While getting her first vaccine is a big moment, Chrissie accepts that not much will actually change.
"I'm getting used to being in more than out now," she said. "Although sometimes I get a bit depressed. I miss my family, miss my grown-up children, my grandchildren, my mum. But that's to be expected."
More than one million people in the South West have now had a Covid jab, which amounts to around 23 per cent of the region's adult population.
Plymouth GP Dr Amanda Harry said: "I don't think any of us know the magic number, because we're not quite sure how protective this is going to be against the new variants. We're still going to have social distancing and be sensible around our behaviours."
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