All over-18s offered vaccine Calls to Childline rise

HEALTH chiefs in Moray will offer everyone over the age of 1 a Covid-19 vaccine within two weeks as they battle an ‘uncontrolled’ outbreak.

NHS Grampian has accelerated its vaccination programme due to widespread transmission of the virus.

Contributing factors are thought to include more people returning to work and large gatherings of youths not abiding by social distancing guidelines.

Moray has been warned it is at risk of staying in Level 3 restrictions when much of the country drops to Level 2 on Monday. The benchmark for Level 2 is to have fewer than 50 cases per 100,000 people. Moray has more than 100 – at least four times the national average.

A total of 65 people in the area have tested positive for coronavirus in the past week.

Moray Council leader Graham Leadbitter said: ‘The expectation is every adult over 1 should be offered an appointment by the end of the month. Hopefully, it can be quicker than that.

‘We’re a couple of weeks away from that achievement – a tremendous number of vaccines have been administered.’

CALLS to a helpline from children under 12 concerned about their mental health have risen by 17 per cent in a year.

The NSPCC charity said its Childline service has had 243 such counselling sessions with youngsters in this age group since April last year. This is up from 207 in the previous year.

Childline said that, in total, it has held 3,664 counselling sessions about mental or emotional health with Scottish under-18s since April 2020.

Anxiety or stress were the most common concerns and discussed in 1,748 sessions – 48 per cent of the total. This was followed by low mood, in 1,006 sessions, confidence issues (569 calls) and depression (496).

Childline founder Dame Esther Rantzen said: ‘Children and young people have had to deal with so many difficult new challenges, many knowing that their families were struggling with health worries and financial issues. Some [were] locked down in unsafe homes, deprived of their schools which may have been their only refuge... their mental health has suffered.’