● NOW LET’S GET READY FOR V-DAY
Hope for millions as jabs arrive north of Border... but experts fear SNP won’t fulfil vaccination pledges
THE Covid vaccine arrived in Scotland by the truckload yesterday, bringing hope of a return to normal life for millions.
On Tuesday – nicknamed V-Day – the first Scot will be vaccinated in the war against the coronavirus which has claimed the lives of 5,500 across the country.
Batches of the world’s first approved vaccine crossed the Border in specially refrigerated trucks early yesterday morning and were immediately driven to secret storage locations.
More will arrive today and tomorrow – and over the coming weeks – totalling 65,500 doses, enough to treat nearly 33,000 patients.
Last night, Health Secretary Jeane Freeman declared that the Pfizer vaccine had given ‘hope’ which would ‘eventually allow us to escape this terrible virus’.
But her comments came as an influential think-tank claimed the Scottish Government was ‘behind the curve’ on plans to immunise 1.1 million people by next spring.
The group of medical experts said there needed to be ‘greater urgency’ in planning the rollout of the vaccination. On Friday, Scotland’s National Clinical Director Professor Jason Leitch was forced to admit he had no idea how many doses of the vaccine that Scotland will receive in the coming weeks.
Scottish Government figures published yesterday showed an additional 22 coronavirus deaths and 777 new cases had been recorded in the 24 hours from Friday to Saturday.
Scotland now faces its largest logistical operation since the
Second World War as it begins the mass vaccination programme.
Last night, the Scottish Government insisted health chiefs, Ministers and military strategists had plans in place and were working to create mass vaccine delivery centres at hospitals, football stadiums, airports and conference centres.
The first phase of the rollout will see those over 80 and frontline health and care workers prioritised to receive the vaccine. Residents in care homes and their carers are to be vaccinated from December 14.
To cater for the first tranche of patients, health boards have organised a legion of nurses, trainee medics and volunteers to help administer the vaccines.
Last night, with the first doses safely in Scotland, insiders said those meeting the criteria for phase one vaccinations are already being contacted by health boards with letters asking them to book their jabs.
Meanwhile, a source close to the transporting of the vaccine described how it arrived.
They said: ‘The first batch of the vaccine is in Scotland.
‘It’s not uncommon for items like this to be moved routinely in specialised refrigerated trucks, and that is what happened here.
‘It’s a low-key system used by the pharmaceutical world all the time and these lorries are capable of transporting super-cooled items at temperatures far lower than standard refrigerated trucks that carry fresh food.
‘The vaccine was taken to specialist hubs, where it will remain until trained staff are ready to bring it up to a working temperature. It’s at that point the doses can be split up into more manageable numbers.’
The first doses of the vaccine, which triggers a protective immune response to the virus, were dropped off at 23 secure freezer locations across Scotland’s health boards.
They will be stored in strictly controlled conditions at -70C until they are issued within days.
But academics from the Our Scottish Future think-tank have raised serious fears that without proper planning for the mass vaccination, the Scottish Government could be putting lives at risk.
Concerns and confusion were
heightened when, at the Scottish Government’s daily Covid-19 briefing on Friday, Professor Leitch admitted that the Scottish Government did not actually know how many vaccine doses were arriving in Scotland in total.
He said: ‘We are not absolutely sure how many Pfizer can give us.
‘We know how many are coming this week, but we don’t know how many are coming in January.
‘So in consultation with the company and the UK Government, we have to align all those three things to get the vaccine to those who need it. Next week we are going to vaccinate only a very few people because we simply don’t have the volume of the vaccine.’
His statement came despite Scottish Government targets to have 1.1 million people vaccinated by the end of April next year.
Now, almost two dozen military planners as well as Army personnel have been recruited to help health boards carry out the significant distribution operation.
Most of the population are likely to be vaccinated at the new vaccine delivery centres, capable of inoculating 20,000 people a week.
Ministers are discussing creating pop-up and city centre venues, as well as using football stadiums and airports. In England, at the end of
November, the military started to convert the Ashton Gate rugby stadium in Bristol into a mass vaccination centre.
Mobile vaccine hubs may also be rolled out in rural Scotland.
And yesterday, Dr Carey Lunan, who chairs the Royal College of GPs in Scotland, said GPs would also have a ‘crucial role’ in inoculating the over-80s. She hopes they may be able to start receiving a different vaccine currently in development, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, from GPs from December 21.
Once the over-80s, frontline health and care workers and care home residents are vaccinated, the focus will move elsewhere. From February, those over 65 and people aged 16-64 with severe underlying health conditions will be vaccinated.
And by the summer of 2021, it is hoped that everyone over 50 will be inoculated against the disease.
It is not known when the rest of the over-18 adult population – around 4.4 million people – will receive their jabs. All patients must receive two doses around three weeks apart to ensure immunity.
The Scottish Government said it has 160 vaccinators ready for Tuesday and is ‘on track’ to secure 2,000 vaccinators and support staff by the end of January.
Last week, Scottish health boards launched major recruitment drives to find registered nurses, optometrists, dentists, pharmacists and non-medical volunteers also willing to help administer the vaccine.
Last night, the Royal College of Nursing Scotland welcomed the extra hands on deck, saying ‘the scale of the mass vaccination programme being planned cannot be delivered by nursing staff alone’.
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman has confirmed that retired doctors, nurses, health professionals and support services staff may be able to assist with the vaccination programme.
Now, with the new vials safely in storage, priority patients are already being contacted by health boards with letters asking them to book their vaccines, made by drugs company Pfizer and its partner BioNTech.
Yesterday, there remained 945 people in hospital in Scotland with recently-confirmed Covid-19. Of those, 64 were fighting for their lives in intensive care.
‘Cannot be delivered by nursing staff alone’