Our health correspondent Alan Bellinger joins us to tell us how to love our nose, the latest on Covid in our area, vaccinations and those planned “elective” surgery waiting times.
Who is eligible for another Covid vaccination and where can they get it? We can summarise eligibility as:
- Everyone aged 5 and over can get a 1st and 2nd dose of the COVID-19vaccine.
- People aged 16 and over, and some children aged 12 to 15, can also get a booster dose
- People aged 12 and over who had a severely weakened immune system when they had their first 2 doses, will be offered a 3rd dose and a booster (4th dose).
- People aged 75 and over, people who live in care homes for older people, and people aged 12 and over who have a weakened immune system, will be offered a spring booster.
NB injections need to be at least 3 months apart!
There are no large vaccination centres in St Albans at the moment but the best option is that there are 12 Pharmacies doing the vaccinations – you can get the full list at https://covid.healthierfuture.org.uk/districts/st-albans – this page also has full
booking instructions but if you’re uncertain about anything call 119.
Your Nose – We had a fabulous webinar last week on “Love Your Nose”; it may not sound very interesting but actually it was a fabulous talk and explained how to deal with all the common problems about the nose – snoring, sinusitis, hay fever,
nose bleeds etc.
Our speaker likened the nose to an air conditioning unit;
Breathing – try breathing through your mouth continuously and you’ll soon recognise how much better the experience is when it comes through your nose! But it also
Humidifies the air as it comes in
- It filters out all the germs (or as we’ve discovered with colds, flu and Covid (most of them!)
- It actually warms the air we breathe in winter and cools it down in the summer
- It provides us with our sense of smell; and, one that most people are unaware of
- It provides resonance to our voice – without the nose our voice would always sound rather muffled.
You can see the recording of the webinar here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IApbANoQ5nk
More about: Covid crisis, Health
