A Blue Plaque that meant a lot

I was privileged in 2021 to play a very small part in a very big effort: the COVID-19 mass vaccination programme. My wife played a very signifiant part in the effort in Ipswich and I was proud to be able to make a contribution. She and I agree it was one of the best things we've ever done. I blogged about it during and afterwards.

A round blue plauqe with the words: COVID Pandemic. Trinity Park Vaccination Centre. This plaque is here to commemorate and remember all the staff who played their part in fighting Covod-19. An NHS logo and rainbow is at hte bottom

Many of the people involved, especially the clinical staff, were properly paid for their efforts. Along with thousands of others around the country, I volunteered.

Inevitably, when it was all over, there was a thank you party and barbecue at the main vaccination centre for Ipswich, Trinity Park (social distancing was behind us by then). Everyone involved was touched that the organisers arranged for a commemorative plaque to be erected, marking the fact that so many people received their two doses of vaccine, a vaccine that ended a pandemic. A vaccine that allowed normal life to resume. A vaccine that saved countless lives.

We forget the figures. Tens of thousands of people died from COVD-19 in the UK alone. Worlwide, estimates put the total deaths at nearly 15 million in 2020-2021.

So where is it? It's gone.

the blank wall where the plaque used to be. Just to the left is the nameplate for the building itself that says: Trinity Park Conference and Events Centre. Opened by HRH The Duke of Gloucester KG GCVO on 31st May 2006

I noticed it the other day when I went to Trinity Park to give blood and there's just a bit of dirt and the remaining fixings.

Initial attempts to find out what's happened to it have come to nought. Was it removed by the owners of Trinity Park? (the Suffolk Agricultural Association) If so, why?

The suspicion is, unforunately much more sinister. Thanks to a growing trend for misinformation and a bizarre hatred of evidence among sections of society, it might have been removed by "anti-vaxxers". People persuaded by charlatans, struck-off ex-doctors and people known for their performative ignorance that somehow "science" is not to be trusted, that facts and opinions are of equal value.

I despair.