Covid: Three vital steps to ensure vaccine wins race against the virus – Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP

But this Monday saw our country plunged into a state of near lockdown after Parliament was recalled in the face of surging transmissions of new-variant Covid-19.

The First Minister said, as part of her remarks, that we are in a “race between the vaccine and the virus”. She wasn’t wrong. If Edinburgh is four weeks behind London, as we are told that it is, then dark days lie ahead and our NHS could be overwhelmed in a way that we thankfully avoided in the first lockdown. Now more than ever we need to swim hell-for-leather towards that life-raft of the vaccine.

With two effective vaccines in circulation, I’d like to see the government take three steps right now to hasten our exit from these unhappy days:

1, We need a Vaccine Minister. Right now, there are a range of ministers, public health officials and government departments responsible for the vaccine deployment, but they are juggling many other Covid-related matters as well. The UK government has appointed a Vaccine Minister. I like that idea and think we should follow suit here. The government needs a laser-beam focus on this. That means somebody competent who’s sole job, 24/7 is to deliver the roll-out and hold accountability for it.

2, We need to be ready for mass vaccination. The government has signalled that it has recruited 2,300 vaccinators and until now that has kept pace with the supply of vaccine. In the next few weeks, we’ll reach a tipping point where we have a sufficiency of vaccine but run the risk of not having enough vaccinators. To give 4.5 million Scots two doses would take 2,500 vaccinators at least 40 working weeks to get through. That doesn’t feel like race-winning performance.

I’ve had many emails and texts from retired clinicians and those with medical training who’ve gone on to do other things who are both qualified and keen to join the injection task force. We need to encourage them to enlist right now, give them any necessary training and even look at opening suitable public buildings to accommodate vaccine micro-hubs so that we aren’t left sitting on a vaccine stockpile for want of vaccinators. The NHS is geared up to bring people back in, so let’s make it happen.

3, We need to get the public information campaign right and ramp it up. As many as a third of UK adults have suggested they will not take the Covid-vaccine. That’s their choice, but it is a desperately misguided one and will harm the pace at which we leave this nightmare. But worryingly there are also now reports of people missing appointments that they had booked, leading to vaccine wastage and a time-slot that could have gone to someone else. Communicating the importance of making and keeping vaccine appointments is critical to making this run smoothly.

There will be more blue Mondays this January and very probably for several months to come. However, at least we’ve finally got a chance of winning this race, but we need to focus everything at it.

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