We have to roll up our sleeves... and grasp our future
THE news last week that the first Covid vaccine had been approved for use and that shipments had started to arrive on UK shores was a cause for genuine celebration.
It was also a moment to reflect on all the scientists, researchers, lab workers, administrators, volunteer testers, production line staff and logistics workers who have got us to this point.
Now it’s time for the Government to take over distribution – making sure health boards are ready, hubs identified, vaccinators recruited, capacity is built and throughput is managed efficiently in order to protect the population in an as effective and timely a manner as possible.
But this enormous exercise can’t rely solely on other people – we all have to do our part.
This pandemic has asked a lot of us. It’s asked us to change the way we work or to stop working altogether. It’s asked us to limit our movement, to wear masks, avoid crowds, shop local and give up evenings out, indoor sport, community singing and children’s soft play.
It’s asked us to postpone weddings, cancel parties and keep funerals down to tiny numbers.
We’ve been asked to suspend medical and dental treatments.
Most heartbreaking of all, it has demanded that we do not see friends, hug family or visit relatives in care homes – and it has stopped us from even holding the hand of someone we love in their last moments.
This pandemic has taken so much from us that it seems an outrage to ask for any
more. But our biggest contribution is yet to come. Just as we gave each other space, applauded on our doorsteps and changed the way we lived in order to protect others, so we will do what is required of us now.
And that requirement is to support the vaccine rollout in word as well as in deed.
That means waiting our turn. Realising that there are some groups – the elderly, those with respiratory or chronic health problems, those working with patients – who are at greater risk and will be first in the queue.
IT also means making sure our own records are up to date, so that if there is a health reason to be in one of these early groups, our GP knows this. It means moving Heaven and Earth to go when called.
Every year around 150,000 medical appointments are missed across Scotland and thousands more are changed by patients ringing up and asking for a date or time to be shifted.
When we are trying to inoculate the entire country in order to get us back to some kind of normal, we have to attend. Recalling noshows takes time and effort that slows our recovery down.
We also need to help others. The Scottish Government hasn’t yet unveiled the list of vaccine hubs, but it has said that there will be some local provision from places such as pharmacies.
Let’s be mindful of the travel difficulties of friends and neighbours, and offer help when we can to get others safely to their appointments, too.
We must also reassure those who are worried about what this vaccine involves.
The amount of misinformation and conspiracy theories online and being discussed in the real world is dispiriting. Even the host of last week’s SNP conference, TV presenter Hayley Matthews, has retweeted ‘anti-vaxx’ conspiracy theories and wrote posts suggesting she would not vaccinate her child.
We all have a responsibility to challenge wild conspiracy theories, reassure concerned colleagues and remind people exactly why this vaccine is so important in the first place.
Yes, after months of giving so much, people across Scotland will be asked for just a little more in order to make the immunisation rollout a success.
But it is to ensure we are free of this horrible disease – and the disruptive restrictions fighting it has created – for good.