Louis Laleye is a Physiotherapist at the High Wycombe Home. He caught Covid in March and later took part in the antibody trial. He explains why he had the Covid vaccine.

I never considered not having the vaccine. In fact, I was looking forward to having it, I wanted to have done. I’m anxious to get back to normal living as soon as possible. I had the virus back in March and I didn’t want to take the chance of getting it again, because we don’t know if you can catch it more than once.

I had it to protect my family, as my parents-in-law are quite elderly and I don’t want to pass it on to them. And it will help protect the residents we care for, and my colleagues, once everyone has been vaccinated.

I had the vaccine along with my wife, who is also a physiotherapist. I’m a fit and healthy person, I take care of my body and look after it. I have no doubt that the vaccine is safe. If I had any concerns that it would be harmful to my health, I wouldn’t have had it and neither would my wife. You always hear these scare-stories with vaccines, like you did with MMR, but I tend to stay clear of the conspiracy theories.

It will have such a big impact on the residents. Most importantly, it will help protect them, which is a good thing because it is so high risk for people of their age and vulnerability. But, it will also allow us to slowly return to something approaching normal, and that’s really critical for their well-being.

You think about the impact it’s had on residents, and how they’ve not been able to see their family and friends like they would normally do. At the moment, life is quite restrictive for them and having contact with their loved ones again will be good for their mental health. In fact, I think it will be good for everyone connected to them.