Man Offered COVID-19 Vaccine Early After Medical Records List Height As 6.2 Centimeters

A journalist in England was mistakenly offered the COVID-19 vaccine early after an administrative error saw his height listed in his medical records as just 6.2 centimeters.

Liam Thorp, the six-foot-two-tall political editor of the Liverpool Echo, was incorrectly deemed to have a body mass index of 28,000 and therefore listed as vulnerable.

Thorp, 32 and with no underlying health conditions, recalled the amusing mix-up in a viral Twitter thread and column published Wednesday. He also revealed how he’d now turned down the shot.

Thorp said he was “really surprised” to be offered the coronavirus jab, given how it is currently being rolled out to the over-65s in the United Kingdom.

He booked an appointment, being “under the impression that when offered a vaccine you should always accept,” but then felt a rising unease about his apparent jumping of the line.

Thorp asked his surgery if there’d been a mistake, he said, before taking “one of the more bizarre phone calls of my life.”

According to health staff, his height had been inputted onto its system as 6.2 centimeters instead of six-foot-two, around 188 centimeters.

“The man’s nervous tone cracked into a laugh when I joked about putting on weight and losing a significant amount of height during the lockdown,” Thorp recalled. “If I had been less stunned, I would have asked why no one was more concerned that a man of these remarkable dimensions was slithering around south Liverpool.”

Read the full column here.