The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Lochee man’s Oxford jab is first in Scotland
An 82-year-old Lochee man has become one of the first patients in Scotland to receive the Oxford-astrazeneca coronavirus vaccine.
Retired Cadbury Foods sales manager James Shaw received the jab from advanced nurse practitioner Justine Williams at the Lochee Health Centre at lunchtime yesterday.
He said he could now see “a glimmer” at the end of the tunnel after receiving the vaccination with his wife Malita, also 82.
He said: “It was great – such a relief. It was completely painless. Anybody who doesn’t get it needs a psychiatrist.
“I can assure you, it can’t do you any harm – it can only do you some good.
“Now I can see a light at the end of the tunnel, maybe just a glimmer, but it’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”
Originally from Portobello, Mr Shaw has lived in Lochee for the last 46 years. He said getting the vaccination only took five minutes.
He added: “It was very enlightening. There were about three or four people waiting afterwards. I spoke to a couple of older lads and they asked what it was like and said they weren’t sure about going in.
“I said it was completely painless. You want to go and get it done.”
Mr S h aw lives with asthma and bronchitis and has been shielding since the start of the outbreak.
“I’m very allergic to any food preservative and I have to be very careful about what I eat. I suffer from asthma and bronchitis,” he said.
“I shopped at about 8 in the morning, before there were other people in the stores. It was a sensible thing to do because I could see there were people who were ignoring the advice they had been given.”
He said he was due to get the second “booster dose” by March 29.
NHS Tayside is rolling out the vaccines through GP practices in the c o m m u n i t y, while continuing to vaccinate elderly residents and staff in care homes.
The Me d i c i n e s and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency ( MHRA) approved the vaccine for use in the UK on December 30. It is being made available to distribution centres through the country.
Tayside immunisations co- ordinator Dr Daniel Chandler said the first injections marked “the biggest vaccine programme that the UK has ever seen across our communities”.
The NHS Tayside public health associate director added: “Over-80s are the first priority group and patients will be contacted directly to attend a vaccination session.
“The e ff o r t s of vaccination teams been amazing.”
T he UK Government procured the OxfordAstrazeneca vaccine on behalf of the four nations and have ordered 100 million doses. Scotland will get 8.2% of that total, based on its population.
The Joint Committee on Va c c i n a t i o n and Immunisation determine the order in which people will receive the vaccine.
It will be given first to care home residents and their carers, people over our have the age of 80 and frontline health and social care workers.
The programme will then be rolled out to the rest of the population, starting starts with people aged 75-79, then 70-74 and the clinically extremely vulnerable.
Mo r e than 100,000 people in Scotland have received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. T his includes the PfizerBiontech jab that was rolled out on December 8.
The Scottish Government expects that, by early May, everyone over 50 and those under 50 with underlying conditions will have received at least the first dose, and the second for both vaccines can be given up to 12 weeks later.
The second dose remains critical for longer- term protection and to complete the course.