A journalist in England mistakenly received the COVID-19 vaccine early on when an administrative error indicated its height in medical records of just 6.2 centimeters, less than 2.5 inches.
Liam Thorp is actually the political editor of Liverpool Echo. His Lilliputian height listing erroneously considered him to have a body mass index of 28,000, an impossibly overweight score that prioritized him for the coronavirus vaccine.
Thorp, 32, has no underlying health conditions. He revealed the fun mix in a viral Twitter thread and column posted Wednesday. He refused the shot, he said.
Thorp said he was “really surprised” to be offered the coronavirus test, which is currently being released to people over 65 in the UK.
He booked an appointment, “having the impression that when he was offered a vaccine he should always accept,” he felt a growing unease over his apparent jump to the head of the line.
According to medical personnel, his height had been entered at 6.2 centimeters instead of 6 feet and 2 inches, about 188 centimeters.
“The man’s nervous tone erupted with laughter when I joked about gaining weight and losing a significant amount of height during closing,” Thorp recalled. “If I had been less stunned, I would have wondered why no one was more concerned that a man of such remarkable size should wander around south Liverpool.”
Read the full column here.
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