As you might imagine, covid-19 vaccines came later to Algeria than they did to the UK, Europe and the US. The first vaccines officially arrived in January 2021, but the campaign didn’t really start to gain momentum until July. The vaccines available here are also different to those being given to our friends and family overseas. While family in the UK were being jabbed with Pfizer and AstraZeneca, the most common vaccines here are China’s Sinovac and Russia’s Sputnik V, with some AstraZeneca thrown in via the UN’s COVAX programme.

In theory, the vaccine is free and freely available without an appointment to anyone who wants it. However, when the campaign first began, IZ and I hung back. This was partly in the spirit of letting others go first. After all, we aren’t considered vulnerable and are in our early thirties, so it seemed to make sense to let others…