Why Aberdeen seems behind on jabs rollout

Official stats show Aberdeen is lagging behind the rest of Scotland when it comes to Covid jabs, and the city’s head of vaccination has explained why.

The latest data from Public Health Scotland shows almost one in five adults in the Granite City is yet to receive their first dose of a vaccine.

At the other end of the scale, almost all over-18s in areas like Argyll and Bute and East Dunbartonshire have been jabbed at least once.

But health chiefs say several factors could be skewing the figures – affecting not only Aberdeen, but the majority of Scotland’s main cities.

When ranking all 32 of Scotland’s local authorities by vaccination rate for all over-18s, five of its seven cities place at the very bottom.

Aberdeen is followed by Glasgow, Dundee and Edinburgh – all of which have around 85% or fewer with a first dose – and Stirling is closer to the 90% mark.

While almost all people in the older age groups have received both jabs, the uptake has been slowing in younger adults.

Looking at Aberdeen specifically, just 66% of 18 to 29-year-olds have received their first dose of the vaccine. A little over 40% have had both.

In East Dunbartonshire, which has the highest percentage of vaccinated adults, more than 85% of 18-29s have had their first dose, with 53% fully jabbed.

Sandy Reid, who has been leading the city’s vaccination programme, thinks a good number of these apparent “missed” jabs could have a simple explanation.

“We’ve learned, particularly with the younger age group, there’s often a drift away from where you lived with your parents,” he said.

“Wherever you come from it’s quite likely that, in your late teens, you’re a student or you’re living with someone else.

“But you might still be registered with the GP practice from when you were there, and are no longer in that area.

“So our national record system says you’re still in that first house – so where are you, as you haven’t turned up.”

Additionally, younger people are more likely to travel larger distances when they move home, compared to more settled older age groups.

Mr Reid added: “People move across cities much more than they might move from, say, one street in Alford to the next.

“Cities are more transient than rural areas, so I think that’s another factor.”

Part of this, he suspects, is also linked to the large student populations commonly found in built-up areas.

“When students went home for Christmas last year, I suspect some never came back again,” Mr Reid said.

“If it had not been for Covid, they would still be in Aberdeen going about their business.

“We’re vaccinating people who are in Aberdeen and, by and large, (the students) are not here.”

Anecdotally health bosses have heard similar things about people from international communities, who headed back to their home countries when talks of national lockdowns began.

Mr Reid said, at one point, postal bosses were collecting hundreds of blue envelope appointment letters each week – all being returned to sender because of an unknown address in Aberdeen.

As a result, it can appear on paper as though people have been offered vaccination appointments and ignored them.

This does not mean the vaccination teams chalk it up as a loss and move on, however.

Chiefs have developed initiatives to continually raise awareness and find other ways of reaching people.

These have included “piggybacking” on the council’s contact centre resources to reach out to people with missed appointments directly, and commandeering roadside notice boards.

Alongside pre-arranged jabs, staff at the P&J Live mass vaccination centre have been welcoming walkins as well.

Specific social media campaigns targeting residents in certain areas with low uptake have been proving fruitful, as have a range of pop-up clinics.

UNPROTECTED: The data from Public Health Scotland shows almost one in five adults in Aberdeen is yet to receive their first dose of a vaccine.