‘I don’t feel even 1 percent safe’: An Indian COVID vaccine nurse

A Punjabi nurse who is suffering from long COVID describes what it is like working in a vaccine clinic.

Nina Sharma, 40, a nurse responsible for administering COVID vaccines at a government hospital in Nawanshahr, in the north Indian state of Punjab, says she never feels safe at work, “not even 1 percent”. “I have to communicate with a lot of people. Doctors can keep a distance but there’s no way we [nurses] can,” she says. The lack of social distancing and inadequate provision of personal protective equipment (PPE) makes it almost impossible to keep them “completely safe”, she adds. “We are only given masks and sanitiser; I have had to buy my own gloves.” Nina, who trained to be a nurse out of necessity when her husband died 13 years ago and she was left to provide for her daughter, explains: “I never would’ve imagined it to be like this. Since COVID-19 happened life has been disturbed.”