Tag: public health

Scottish care home visits to resume next month

Routine indoor visiting of care home residents by relatives, friends and carers can resume from early March with care providers supporting residents to have up to two designated visitors each and one visit a week for each visitor, the Scottish Government has announced.

With a wide range of protections now in place against COVID-19 for care home residents, it is has been decided meaningful contact should be made easier for the wellbeing of residents and their loved ones.

The most recent of these protections is the COVID vaccine with more than 99.9% of older care home residents and 92% of staff now vaccinated with first dose.

Additionally, the national picture of coronavirus outbreaks in care homes is improving.  NRS data shows that deaths from coronavirus in care homes have fallen by 62% in the last three weeks and the balance is now in favour of allowing contact to resume.

Guidelines to be published on Wednesday 24 February will support care providers to resume visiting for up to two designated visitors per resident.

Every time someone goes into a care home it is a COVID  risk. But we are acutely conscious that continued restriction of contact for residents with relatives can contribute to  loneliness and isolation and worsening physical and mental health. With the range of protections in place against COVID, the bigger risk now is the continued separation of residents from loved ones.

Visitors will need to wear face coverings and any PPE requested by the care home, and are strongly encouraged to take a COVID test on-site. While visiting may sometimes still be restricted, for example in the event of an outbreak at a care home, the expectation will now be that homes will facilitate regular weekly contact as long as certain safety conditions are met. We will then work to continue to gradually increase the frequency and duration of contact.

Health Secretary Jeanne Freeman said: “The decisions regarding restrictions on visiting for care home residents have been some of the most difficult we have faced and I have the greatest sympathy for those who have been unable to see relatives and loved ones in person for so long.

“Care home staff have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic to support continued contact between residents and their loved ones but these restrictions have been hugely challenging for them, as well as for care home staff and colleagues.

“We deeply regret the deaths and other harm caused by coronavirus in our care homes, but we also recognise the harm caused to the wellbeing of residents and families as a result of an inability to see those they love.

“We must remain vigilant about the risks but with multiple layers of protection now in place the balance is in favour of allowing visits.  Everyone, including visitors, has a responsibility to ensure that visits take place as safely as possible by continuing to follow safety advice.

“The additional protection in place includes infection prevention and control measures (IPC); personal protective equipment (PPE) in care homes and testing of staff and visiting professionals to care homes, which have developed processes and protocols for safer indoor visiting to take place.

“The guidance we are publishing sets out an expectation that providers will put in place arrangements to enable regular visits to resume from early March and from the discussions I have had with providers, I now expect all care homes to have embraced this guidance by mid-March.”

Cathie Russell of Care Home Relatives Scotland said: “We look forward to working with care home providers, public health and oversight teams to ensure that the new guidance allows residents to enjoy meaningful contact with their closest relatives and friends once more.

“It has been a very difficult year. The deepest ties of love are important and we can never thrive without them.”

Donald MacAskill, chief executive of Scottish Care, said: “The COVID pandemic has presented frontline care home staff and managers with many challenges but undoubtedly the hardest has been keeping residents apart from family and friends. 

“We have now reached a very different place and with a range of COVID-19 protections in place, including vaccination and testing, combined with the use of PPE and IPC, we are at a stage where we can re-introduce safer indoor visiting to Scotland’s care homes. This day has been long-awaited and we understand that it will be an emotional time for many. 

“Scottish Care is committed to supporting staff and managers, residents and family, to make sure that these guidelines succeed in their aim of reconnecting individuals.

“We commit to working together to overcome any challenges and difficulties we might face and to support those who may still be anxious and fearful, so that together we can ensure that a painful period of separation can be replaced by greater togetherness.” 

Gabe Docherty, on behalf of Scottish Directors of Public Health, said: “There’s not been a day when these very human considerations haven’t weighed on the minds of my colleagues and I as we’ve endeavoured to safely negotiate all the challenges COVID has presented.

“It is always been the focus of Directors of Public Health to reinstate visiting as soon as there was evidence that the risks of doing so were greatly reduced. So I warmly welcome and wholeheartedly endorse the approach – and all that it means for care home residents, their families and  Care Home staff.”

Councillor Stuart Currie, Health and Social Care Spokesman for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, said: “Local Government welcomes the forthcoming guidance on resuming meaningful contact for care home residents and recognises the impact that restrictions have had on residents, their families and friends and care home staff. 

“This guidance supports all parts of the system to ensure that meaningful contact is undertaken safely with a number of safety and protection measures in place.”

The Scootish annnouncement follows a statement from the UK Government earlier this morning that every care home resident in England will be allowed one regular indoor visitor from 8 March.

Scotland’s vaccination rollout ‘exceeds expectations’

A total of 786,427 people have now received their first Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination in Scotland, including 93% of over-80s living in the community.

Some 99% of older adult care home residents have received a first dose, along with 89% of staff in older adult care homes. A total of 272,365 frontline health and social care workers have also been vaccinated, exceeding the initial target of 230,000 staff provided by health boards.

This week, following the opening of new mass vaccination centres, including the Edinburgh International Conference Centre and Aberdeen’s P&J LIVE at TECA, there has been a 49% increase in the number of vaccinations carried out compared with the previous week.

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said: “Scotland’s COVID-19 vaccination programme is now delivering ahead of our expectations, thanks to the enormous efforts of our vaccination teams. I would like to thank everyone who is working tirelessly to make this a success, and also every individual who has taken up their offer of a vaccine.

“Our aim is to vaccinate as many people as possible with both their first and second doses. The vaccine deployment plan was predicated on an uptake of at least 80% in each cohort – though so far we are significantly exceeding that for care home residents and staff, frontline healthcare staff, and over 80-year-olds in the community. If you are aged over 80 but have not yet received your invite, you should contact your GP surgery so they can assist.

“We hope to see a significant drop in the disease due to the vaccination programme, however this will take a number of months to evaluate fully. In the shorter term, we are monitoring the uptake rate but we also have a comprehensive surveillance system in place to monitor outcome of vaccine efficacy and disease reduction.

“Each health board is working hard to get the vaccine into people’s arms as quickly as possible, and everyone eligible will be offered the vaccine as we work our way through the priority groups.”

Community testing to be increased

Scotland’s next community testing site for people without COVID-19 symptoms will open in Cowdenbeath, Fife next Wednesday (10 February).

The centre will open from 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday and initially, from 11am to 5pm Saturday and Sunday. Four more sites in different areas across Fife will open in the coming weeks.

The sites will provide lateral flow testing, followed by a confirmatory PCR test if the first result is positive.

Lateral flow tests detect active infections, with results in minutes. They are a cheap technology and could be a useful tool to identify people with asymptomatic infections who would not otherwise be detected.

Dedicated support will be available on-site for anyone who needs help to self-isolate as a result, including advice on how to access financial support and food packages.

The Fife site is the first to open since asymptomatic testing was successfully trialled in Johnstone in December.

Further proposals for Ayrshire & Arran, Dumfries & Galloway, Greater Glasgow & Clyde, and Grampian have been agreed, and discussions are underway with a number of other boards and local authorities for agreement in the coming days. 

Community testing has continued in the meantime with MTUs deployed since 18 January to provide testing for people with and without symptoms in the following communities: Maybole, Grangemouth, Langholm, West Linton, Sauchie, Denny, and Hawick. Data on the number of people tested and positivity rates at these sites will be published by Public Health Scotland next Wednesday .

Public Health Minister Mairi Gougeon said: “Increased testing in this way will help us find and isolate more cases, by targeting resources with communities where there is high prevalence, helping us to identify more cases of the virus and giving us all a better chance of stopping it from spreading.

“However, a test only tells us if we are positive at the point in time that we are being tested.  It does not mean that we can stop following all of the rules and guidelines which are in place to protect all of us. Testing is only one layer of protection against this virus – all others, including vaccination and the FACTS guidance work to greatest effect when they work together, so it is essential people continue to follow the restrictions currently in place to suppress COVID to the lowest possible level in Scotland.

“This expansion has been made possible as our testing capacity has increased but it could not have happened without the support of our local partners, and everyone involved in Scotland’s testing programme, from diagnostic staff to sample takers, and I want to pay tribute to each and every one of you as we continue to work to suppress this virus together.”

Further information and updates on the Fife Community Testing programme is available at nhsfife.org/communitytesting

Briggs: Ministers out of touch on NHS Lothian vaccination rollout

Local vaccination figures show that 80,066 people have been vaccinated in NHS Lothian, equivalent to 10.6% of the population over the age of 16.

Last week NHS Lothian said the Scottish Government vaccination figures were invalid, because they did not include vaccinations that had happened at GP practices in NHS Lothian.

At the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday Health Secretary Jeane Freeman admitted that “we do need to vaccinate faster in Scotland than we have been doing.”

Scotland is lagging behind the rest of the UK in the number of people vaccinated so far, with SNP Ministers rearranging their target for all over 70s to receive a letter to be vaccinated by the end of last week, to end of this week.

The delivery of vaccines to GP practices has been highlighted as a crucial area where the delivery of the vaccines is being held up, with GP practices limited to 100 vaccines doses a week.

Lothian MSP, Miles Briggs, said: “It is worrying that SNP Ministers are lagging behind other parts of the United Kingdom in the Covid-19 vaccine rollout.

“An efficient vaccination rollout is vital for protecting elderly and at risk people from Covid-19, but also so that our schools can fully reopen and businesses get going again.

“Every day that the vaccinations rollout is delayed is another day where pupils aren’t able to get back to school and businesses won’t be making any income.

“In NHS Lothian it is not clear whether GP practice vaccination numbers have been included in the total, and it is very concerning that SNP Ministers don’t know how many people have been vaccinated.”

https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/population-health/covid-19/covid-19-statistical-report/

The Conservative Lothians list MSP also expressed concern over Accident and Emergency waiting times figures released on Tuesday.

They revealed that 83.4% of patients were seen within the 4 hour waiting time target at A&E departments in Lothian, for the December 2020, the latest figures available.

The figure seen within 4 hours is comparable to December 2019, when 80.4% of patients were seen within the 4 hour standard in NHS Lothian, despite attendance dropping from 23,724 to 16,916.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine warned that staff had been working relentlessly for 11 months and “Studies have shown many have face psychological distress, stress and even PTSD as a result of the pandemic.

Lothian MSP has called on SNP Ministers to step up their efforts to support NHS Lothian frontline staff, and said they that SNP Ministers have not done enough, despite unprecedented funding from the UK government to overcome Covid-19.  

Mr Briggs said that members of the public also have a role to play in alleviating pressure on NHS services.

Lothian MSP, Miles Briggs, said: “NHS Lothian frontline staff have been working flat out to overcome Covid-19 for almost a year and we must all do everything we can to alleviate pressure on them as the Covid-19 vaccines is rolled out.

“It is important that people still go to A&E if they have an emergency, and not be put off by Covid-19, but people must make an appointment with their GP if they have a condition which doesn’t need immediate medical attention.”


“SNP Ministers have not done enough to support NHS Lothian frontline staff, despite record funding from the UK Government, with waiting times growing for A&E despite fewer people attending.

“Keeping socially distanced and following Covid-19 rules is crucial for a bit longer, as the vaccines is rolled out, so that our NHS doesn’t get overwhelmed.”

NHS Lothian attendance and waiting time figures:

https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/health-services/hospital-care/ae-activity-and-waiting-times/  (in data tables)

NHS Lothian

Episode and aggregate level dataApr-2020May-2020Jun-2020Jul-2020Aug-2020Sep-2020Oct-2020Nov-2020Dec-2020   
Number of attendances12,03016,15017,73718,98421,13620,47019,32817,77616,916   
Total attendances for year to month271,907263,517257,058251,908247,864243,117237,364230,625223,817   
Rolling average attendance22,65921,96021,42220,99220,65520,26019,78019,21918,651   
Over 4 hours in A&E5497239159901,6852,0882,0392,1552,810   
% within 4 hours (month)95.4%95.5%94.8%94.8%92.0%89.8%89.5%87.9%83.4%   
% within 4 hours (rolling annual)86.6%87.0%87.4%87.5%87.6%87.7%87.9%88.6%89.1%   
Episode level data only            
Number of attendances11,98016,07317,60118,91120,99920,41119,26217,69616,851   
Over 8 hours in A&E2424505792202231219481   
% within 8 hours (month)99.8%99.9%99.7%99.7%99.6%99.0%98.8%98.8%97.1%   
Over 12 hours in A&E133310392637124   
% within 12 hours (month)100.0%100.0%100.0%100.0%100.0%99.8%99.9%99.8%99.3%   
             
Episode and aggregate level dataApr-2019May-2019Jun-2019Jul-2019Aug-2019Sep-2019Oct-2019Nov-2019Dec-2019Jan-2020Feb-2020Mar-2020
Number of attendances23,83124,54024,19624,13425,18025,21725,08124,51523,72423,61721,90917,764
Total attendances for year to month282,525282,583283,569284,742285,857287,956289,785290,805290,817290,699290,349283,708
Rolling average attendance23,54423,54923,63123,72923,82123,99624,14924,23424,23524,22524,19623,642
Over 4 hours in A&E2,9682,8292,7911,9122,4412,9423,3984,5614,6584,1033,9022,390
% within 4 hours (month)87.5%88.5%88.5%92.1%90.3%88.3%86.5%81.4%80.4%82.6%82.2%86.5%
% within 4 hours (rolling annual)

…

NOTE

The highest number of vaccinations in one day was recorded on Wednesday: 45,085 people had a jab, taking the total of those who have had a first injection to 694,347.

Caught in the act of Care

Gallery showcases Queen Elizabeth staff at the heart of delivering care during pandemic

Within the atrium of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) we have a gallery which pays tribute to the many staff working across the hospital site to look after patients during this difficult time.

Here, we’ve collated some of the images from the ‘Caught in the act of Care’ exhibition alongside some of quotes from staff on what it’s like to work during the pandemic.

Kate Hill, Acute Services Practice Development Nurse
“It is a really challenging and difficult situation for all staff in NHS, however, they have worked collaboratively to provide excellent care for patients.”

Anne Watson, Specialist Physiotherapist, Orthopaedics and Emma Brough, Physiotherapist
Anne Watson quoted: “It’s been a really tough time but our team has worked extremely well together to support not only our patients but each other.”

Scott Boardman, Domestic services  
“I feel the patients are like a second family as I am the only visitor some get on daily basis due to no visitors in current climate. I have a lot of long term patients who I enjoy having a bit of banter to pass the time of day and to put a smile on their faces.”

Rachael Matthews,  Speech and Language Therapist
“It’s been a challenging time but hopefully there’s light at the end of the tunnel now.  Keep following the rules as we want you to be able to visit your loved ones as soon as possible.”

Graeme Condie,  Travel Plan officer, Travel plan office
“Despite the additional pressures and workload during the pandemic, a real positive for our department has been the increase in appetite from a wide range of staff to move towards a more sustainable form of regular travel to their work.”

Amy Wood, Staff Nurse, Orthopaedics (now moved to community)
“The uncertainty was difficult, especially at the start when everything changed so quickly. Everyone pulled together and supported each other though, which was great to be a part of.”

Council cuts could send rat populations spiralling out of control

A jump of 25% in the rat population during 2020 has increased the pest control workload in most areas of the UK, as rats migrate from city centre commercial areas to inner city residential – increasing reports from worried residents about rat sightings.

Reports of rats being seen in open public areas during lockdown are common, with Council pest control departments being sent an increasing number of reports of rats in inner city residential areas as rats migrate in the search for food and shelter.

“Lockdown is presenting a serious challenge for pest controllers, none more so than where financial cuts and social distancing is hampering Local Authority departments in their ability to tackle rat populations. This is not only a funding issue – the population of rats is growing, and the ability to control them with traditional means is decreasing as 74% of UK rats have been shown to carry immunity to popular poisons”, explains Jenny Rathbone of Pest Controller Pest.co.uk

Areas such as Bridgend where Councillor Nicole Burnett, cabinet member for social services and early help reported: “There does seem to be an increase in the rat population in residential areas, particularly residential areas close to town centres.” They have seen an increase of 47% in the reports of rat problems since 2016.

Cardiff is suffering a similar problem, Gill Lewis from Caerphilly County Borough Council stated: “there has been a significant increase in pest control requests since March 2020 because “more people are at home and seeing more pest activity than they usually would”.

“The big problem we face is that residents of more deprived inner-city areas tend to use Local Authority services to treat rodent problems, and it’s these areas rats are moving to during lockdown – any cuts to services will end up impacting the poorest the hardest – and we all know cuts are coming”, Rathbone adds.

UK Rat Population grew 25% last year (Source Pest.co.uk)

  • 2019 – 120m
  • 2020 – 150m

The issues currently affecting the control of the rat population in the UK are:

  1. The first lockdown in March 2020 allowed rats to get a foothold, and breed well. The population increased 25% in 2020 from 120 million to 150 million.
  2. Traditional pest control methods are becoming ineffective as the 2019-20 Campaign for Responsible Rodenticide Use survey of rats showed that 74% of rats in the UK carried a resistance gene to popular rodenticides, and even more worrying in some locations in the UK, 20% have two different genes, making them super resistant (Source)
  3. Pressure on Local Authority Pest Control departments to provide more services, with ever increasing strain on finances.

Pest.co.uk is advising anyone living in inner-city urban areas to take proactive measures before problems start, these include:

  • Block up holes – Fill any gaps in brickwork, shed doors and any holes on external walls of your home including cellars and attics
  • Clear cupboards – Empty unused cupboards of bags, clothes, rags and keep them clean
  • Secure all food sources – Make sure food is not left out, tidy away any open food sources and keep worktops and floors clean of crumbs
  • Prepare traps – by leaving out rat traps you can pre-empt any future infestation, however it is better to bait with official rat poison than leaving food scraps out

“2021 could be interesting. The longer the lockdown continues, the higher the risk that rats get a real foothold that will be hard to control come summer”, concludes Jenny Rathbone of Pest Controller Pest.co.uk

“I am Sorry …” – Coronavirus death toll passes 100,000

Prime Minister’s statement on coronavirus: 26th January 2021

I am sorry to have to tell you that today the number of deaths recorded from Covid in the UK has surpassed 100,000, and it is hard to compute the sorrow contained in that grim statistic.

The years of life lost, the family gatherings not attended and, for so many relatives, the missed chance even to say goodbye.

I offer my deepest condolences to everyone who has lost a loved one: fathers and mothers; brothers and sisters; sons and daughters and the many grandparents who have been taken.

And, to all those who grieve, we make this pledge: that when we have come through this crisis, we will come together as a nation to remember everyone we lost, and to honour the selfless heroism of all those on the front line who gave their lives to save others.

We will remember the courage of countless working people – not just our amazing NHS and care workers, but shop workers, transport staff, pharmacists, teachers, police, armed forces emergency services and many others – who kept our country going during our biggest crisis since the Second World War.

We will commemorate the small acts of kindness, the spirit of volunteering and the daily sacrifice of millions who placed their lives on hold time and again as we fought each new wave of the virus, buying time for our brilliant scientists to come to our aid.

In that moment of commemoration, we will celebrate the genius and perseverance of those who discovered the vaccines and the immense national effort – never seen before in our history – which is now underway to distribute them, one that has now seen us immunise over 6.8 million people across the United Kingdom.

And when those vaccines have finally freed us from this virus and put us on a path to recovery, we will make sure that we learn the lessons and reflect and prepare.

And, until that time, the best and most important thing we can all do to honour the memory of those who have died is to work together with ever greater resolve to defeat this disease.

And that is what we will do.

Keir Starmer, Leader of the Labour Party, said: “This is a national tragedy and a terrible reminder of all that we have lost as a country.

“We must never become numb to these numbers or treat them as just statistics. Every death is a loved one, a friend, a neighbour, a partner or a colleague. It is an empty chair at the dinner table.

“To all those that are mourning, we must promise to learn the lessons of what went wrong and build a more resilient country. That day will come and we will get there together.

“But for now we must remember those that we have lost and be vigilant in the national effort to stay at home, protect our NHS and vaccinate Britain.”

Dumped contaminated face masks causing health & safety nightmare

Litter pickers across the UK are reporting a huge increase in the number of dumped contaminated disposable face masks being spotted during their patrols, as the number of single use masks used in the UK during 2021 is feared to reach 19.5 BILLION.

“The scale of the problem of carelessly dumped disposable face masks is massive – we use 52 million single use plastic masks a day and sadly some of these are being dropped, or simply fall from people’s pockets – sightings are increasingly common now”, explains Charlotte Green of UK waste company TradeWaste.co.uk

The number of disposable face masks that will be used across the UK in 2021 has been calculated at 19.5 billion. A proportion of these are discarded either carelessly or accidentally, meaning many end up being blown into woods making their journey into streams, rivers and eventually the sea.

What 19.5 billion single use face masks in numbers looks like:

  • 52 million a day
  • 1.6 billion a month
  • 19.5 billion a year – weight equivalent to 5 ½ Eiffel Towers

The problem of how to dispose of masks is tricky, with no easy way to recycle and conflicting ways to handle potentially contaminated masks – the real problem is the littering caused by careless users.

Litter pickers across the country are reporting an increasing number of masks being collected during their rounds. In Fife, the Street Champions group reported finding 1 mask for every 60m they patrolled near a shopping area in Rosyth – they have collected a total of 3,500 since March. This is common across the whole of the UK.

Max Ratcliffe, aged 6, from Menston in West Yorkshire took part in a home-schooling project to examine litter and its effect on the environment in his local wood.

He was shocked by how many masks he spotted, with 1 dumped mask found every 50m on a path popular with dog walkers. “I think it’s really bad. People should put them in the bin. Animals might eat them, and they might die”, reported Max.

Used masks are not only a littering issue, but also a health and safety one.

“Used masks are tricky and you should not touch a used mask – they should be treated like any other potentially contaminated material and only handled professionally using the right protecting equipment”, explains Charlotte Green, of  TradeWaste.co.uk.

“There are obvious risks associated with coming into contact with a used mask.

“The way to tackle this potential environmental disaster is for everyone to move towards washable reusable masks, not only will this cut down on single use mask litter, but it also reduces the environmental impacts of manufacturing 19.5 billion plastic masks in the first place.

“As a country we have worked so hard to reduce plastic consumption, yet we are sleepwalking into another nightmare.”

“DITCH YOUR DISPOSABLE” CAMPAIGN

Ditch your Disposable Face Mask in 2021 and save £190

  • A single use disposable face mask costs 18p
  • Over a year using 3 per day this is £197.10
  • A washable face mask costs £1.40 (Pack of 5 is £6.99)
  • If you can use 5 masks by washing them, then over a year this is a saving of £190.11

JVT: Hardship, but also hope

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van-Tam highlights the importance of continuing to follow the guidance, even after receiving a COVID-19 vaccination

Next Saturday will mark the first anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and next Sunday will be one year on from the first case of COVID-19 detected in the UK. It has been a terrible year as the virus has spread across the world causing misery, hardship, death and severely disrupting all of our lives.

The silver lining has been the incredible work of scientists and healthcare professionals across the world. If you had told me 12 months ago, that the UK would have discovered, in dexamethasone, the first treatment proven to reduce COVID-19 deaths, and vaccinated over 5 million people by this point, I would have been astonished. But that is the place in which we find ourselves. Hardship, but also hope.

Many people have played an important role in getting vaccines in arms, including the teams of researchers behind the development of the vaccines, the volunteers who took part in clinical trials, the Vaccines Taskforce who ensured we had supply of vaccine and the NHS staff and volunteers who are now working hard to administer them to people quickly and safely.

Their work has been incredible and we should rightly celebrate this.

Vaccines do offer the way out of the pandemic and a return to life as we knew it – having a pint before watching your local football team, multigenerational family gatherings and big weddings. These really will return! But to make that happen as quickly as possible we need to bring the number of cases down as soon as we can whilst we vaccinate our most vulnerable. To do that there are some important scientific points I want to highlight:

No vaccine has ever been 100% effective so no-one will have 100% protection from the virus. The way to reduce everyone’s risk is to break the chains of transmission and really push down the number of cases.

Vaccines work by tricking your body into thinking it has to fight the virus. It trains you for this fight by making antibodies and stimulating T-cells; then you are ready if you do come across the real thing. However, like any training, getting up to ‘match fitness’ takes time. Your body’s response, the immune response, is only fully trained up around 2 or 3 weeks after you have each of your 2 jabs. If you are older it’s better to allow at least 3 weeks. You can still get COVID in this time.

Even better and longer lasting protection then comes from the second dose so it is really important that everyone gets the second jab.

Really importantly we do not yet know the impact of the vaccine on transmission of the virus. So even after you have had both doses of the vaccine you may still give COVID to someone else and the chains of transmission will then continue. If you change your behaviour you could still be spreading the virus, keeping the number of cases high and putting others at risk who also need their vaccine but are further down the queue.

We still have a very high number of hospitalisations and deaths. A quarter of hospital admissions for COVID-19 are in people under the age of 55. Despite the speed of the rollout, these are people who will not have the vaccine for a while yet.

Some people are questioning the UK policy of trying to give as many at-risk people as possible the first dose of vaccine in the shortest possible time, inevitably extending the interval before the second dose is given.

But what none of these (who ask reasonable questions) will tell me is: who on the at-risk list should suffer slower access to their first dose so that someone else who’s already had one dose (and therefore most of the protection) can get a second? Everyone on the JCVI priority list is at risk from this nasty virus, and vaccines just can’t be produced at an unlimited rate.

It has been a very difficult year for us all and everyone, including me, is desperate to return to seeing the people we love. The vaccine has brought considerable hope and we are in the final furlough of the pandemic but for now, vaccinated or not, we still have to follow the guidance for a bit longer.

Look out for your blue envelope – although the first ones are white!

Appointments scheduled for next groups on the priority list

Blue envelopes containing an invitation to a coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine appointment for people aged 70 -79 will start to land on doormats in several health board areas from tomorrow (Monday 25 January) – but, confusingly, the first batch will be WHITE!

A new booking system is being used by health boards in Lothian, Fife, Forth Valley, Ayrshire & Arran, Greater Glasgow & Clyde and Lanarkshire to schedule appointments for patients in order of priority. More boards are expected to make use of the technology as the vaccination programme expands.

The distinctive coloured envelopes will be delivered to households as the programme progresses though the different groups on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) priority list. The letters will include information on how to reschedule an appointment if it is not suitable.

We are on track for all those aged over 80 to have received their first dose of the vaccine by the end of the first week in February.

No-one aged 80 or over should expect a blue envelope because they will be contacted directly by phone or letter.  

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said: “We all know how easy it is to ignore some of the mail which comes through our letterboxes but these blue envelopes will be very distinctive and they will contain details of your vaccine appointment so please open them.

“The letters are being posted First Class and we have been advised by the Royal Mail that the colour will allow them to prioritise delivery.

“The blue envelopes will contain information about the time and place of your appointment and details on how to reschedule it if you are unable to attend.

“I would urge everyone to take up their appointment when they are offered one.

“The vaccination programme is one of three key ways we are working to beat this virus, along with our expanded testing programme to identify cases and break chains of transmission and the important lockdown restrictions everyone in Scotland must follow. All these measures work to greatest effect when they work together.”

UPDATE: Sunday 24 January

The first tranche of letters will use NHS branded WHITE envelopes but distinctive coloured blue envelopes are planned to be used as soon as possible as the programme progresses though the different groups on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) priority list.

The letters will include information on how to reschedule an appointment if it is not suitable.