A stairway to heaven for the most rocker apostle of vaccines

An inveterate rocker like Amos García Rojas he can't help but put a soundtrack to life's important episodes, with themes that evoke the mood: yours, thanks to the covid-19 vaccine, has just changed the pace and sounds like 'Stairway to heaven', of Led Zeppelin.

García Rojas is not only the presenter of 'La posada del blues', the classic rock program that the educational station Radio ECCA broadcasts for the entire Canary Islands on the last weekend of each month, but he also directs the Epidemiology of health service of the islands and presides over the Spanish Association of Vaccination.

Since a virus called SARS-CoV-2 changed our lives, it is a common face on televisions throughout the country, because many seek his analysis on how the pandemic evolves, especially since the hope of immunity arrived , in interventions that he always takes advantage of to repeat the mantra that also opens all his messages on Twitter: "Calm and patience: + Prudence"

But anyone who knows him a little more closely, knows that large doses of vaccines run through the veins of one of the best known "apostles" of vaccines in Spain. AC / DC, Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Led Zeppelin and even the pioneers of rock'n'roll in the 50s.

His is classic rock and his appearance gives him away, even wearing a jacket, although this Wednesday morning, January 13, his half hair was slightly cut for the occasion: from shortly after 9.30, the vaccine also flows through his blood from Pfizer-BioNtech. And he can't hide that he's excited.

"It is frankly exciting. It is the only instrument that will allow us to moderate the pandemic, the vaccine. After so many months of pain, suffering, see your colleagues and yourself work until exhaustion ..."García Rojas confesses to journalists, while his eyes get wet and his face lights up.

It cannot be hidden even by the mask. He knows that "without lowering his guard", he can begin to think about "feeling free from being infected." He and all the Spaniards who have already received the first dose of the covid-19 vaccine: the elderly in nursing homes, the caregivers who attend them and health personnel. The first.

In the case of Canary Islands, there are already more than 23,000 people who have injected the vaccine. And García Rojas hopes that the process will accelerate a lot in the coming days, as soon as the most complicated and slow stage ends, that of nursing homes, which in the case of the Canary Islands will be completed tomorrow, Thursday, the administration of the first of the two dose.

The president of the Spanish Association of Vaccination stoically endures the puncture of the needle, even thanking the nurse for how well the injection has been done. But while you wait for the mandatory 15 minutes of rest to ensure that you do not suffer any reaction, you cannot prevent it from arising the joker and sly guy inside.

He puts his hand to his forehead, changes his gesture, looks at his colleagues seriously and blurts out: "If you'll excuse me, I feel a bit strange. I hear voices ... like from Bill Gates. Laughter surrounds him.

When asked if instead of voices at the moment some music is playing in his head, the director of "La posada del blues" returns to the scene, the music lover with rather cañeros tastes, who suggests choosing something "powerful" for the occasion .

"For me", he explains, "the pandemic has a very clear soundtrack, which has gone from melody to rhythm. It is a band characterized first by 'The long and winding road', the long and winding path of the Beatles, and that then he continued with 'Highway to hell' ('Highwaw to hell'), by AC / DC And in this moment I place myself in 'The stairway to heaven' ('Starway to heaven'), by Led Zeppelin ".

With these musical tips, he resumed his role as a health expert, to address directly all those who still host any doubts about whether to get vaccinated against covid-19 or not.

"We are talking about a disease that has killed two million people, which is said soon. The side effects that it can produce are clearly described in clinical trials and are similar to those of any vaccine. Therefore, you have to choose between the possibility of becoming infected and dying and of having some type of secondary effect that is not usually frequent ", he summarizes.

And if the technical explanation is not enough, Amós García Rojas appeals to reason, to common sense: "And if we don't get vaccinated, what? What is the alternative? To continue as we are?"

He, for the moment, returns to his work in the middle of the third wave of the pandemic, with the high of the vaccine and Led Zeppelin. But surely his next tweet will start like this: "Calm and patience: + Prudence", because as he said last night on the same social network, the arrival of the vaccine does not mean "that all the fish is sold".