Since July 2020 I’ve been participating in the Imperial College ‘COVAC1’ vaccine trial. You can read more about the specifics of that trial here.
In March 2020 I lost all my work in the live music industry for the rest of the year; all of my income just vanished overnight.
I wanted to do something to get things back to normal and so I could go back to the career and job I love.
This piece originally featured in The Guardian as part of a larger article which you can read here.
Take it from me: I’ve had no side effects and can’t recommend getting the vaccine enough.
Here’s what I wrote for that article:
Driving past venues in London and seeing them empty, it’s horrendous. I go around the world with artists. Coronavirus has stopped all that — my last job was 7 March. The rest of the year was full and we lost everything in the space of 48 hours. There’s a lot of people in really difficult places. People who’ve got kids, mortgages, who’ve sold their houses. I read 170,000 jobs will be lost in the music industry by the end of the year. That’s why I signed up for the vaccine trial. They’re welcome to take as much of my blood as they want until we can get back to normal, because we can’t keep living like this.
