Readers' Letters: Stop carping about vaccine rollout

The Covid vaccine programme is being rolled out across Scotland

Do politicians, who say they want to see the Covid vaccination programme succeed, but give the impression that their preference is to home in on flaws and errors in order to attack the government, ever give a thought to how dispiriting it can be to the thousands of health professionals working extremely hard administering a hugely complicated logistical operation to be faced with carping criticism? Do they think these folk don't read the papers or listen to the news broadcasts?

An example of this is Colin Hamilton (Letters, January 14) who complains that mass vaccination centres will not be set up until mid-February, but looking at the government's published strategy, it seems pretty obvious that their priority was to establish a network of 1,100 centres where people could be invited to attend for vaccinations and to take the programme to the most vulnerable who can't travel to mass vaccination centres.

People like residents of care homes, where more than 80 per cent of residents have now been vaccinated.

It's also worth noting that mass centres without supplies of vaccine are pointless – no pun intended.The daily figures on vaccination reported that as of Thursday January 14, 208,207 people had received their first dose of the vaccine.

This seems to indicate that the system is working and ramping up quite quickly. We can only assume that is the result of some "proactive" strategy planning by the government and the various branches of the Health Services.

Gill Turner, Derby Street, Edinburgh

Tell the truth

The SNP's ploys in the aftermath of their handling of complaints against Alex Salmond become ever murkier. A Freedom of Information request reveals that the SNP spent £55,000 to "prepare" civil servants about to give evidence to the enquiry! I could have saved the taxpayer £55,000 by giving them the simple instruction: tell the truth.

In the event, several of these witnesses refused to answer questions, gave incomplete or misleading information or claimed they "forgot". I wonder how much was spent on coaching Nicola Sturgeon?

It begs the question as to the lengths to which this party will go in order to prevent the simple, unadulterated facts from reaching the light of day. The longer this goes on the clearer it becomes that the order of the day is "obstruction and obfuscation". And these are not my words but those of the chair of the Salmond inquiry – an SNP MSP.

Colin Hamilton, Braid Hills Avenue, Edinburgh

Halcyon daze

So Nicola Sturgeon has refused to explain why £55,000 of taxpayer cash was used to tutor civil servants on how best to answer questions at the Alex Salmond inquiry. Remember those pre-SNP halcyon days when the civil service was neither politicised nor seemingly employed as a pawn in internal SNP power feuds?

Martin Redfern, Melrose, Roxburghshire

Beg pardon

Surely the inauguration of the new president isn’t the moment for gloating and revenge. In 1974 President Ford pardoned his predecessor Richard Nixon, a move much derided at the time but in hindsight an action of wisdom and courage which spared America the consequences of a lengthy impeachment and trial.

If Joe Biden did the same it would be a quantum leap in the healing of the nation. One cannot pardon the innocent so Trump’s guilt in Washington riot would be implicit. If the lunatic fringe of the Democratic Party still wants blood it should be reminded by saner colleagues that the noblest form of revenge is to forgive.

(Rev) Dr John Cameron, Howard Place, St Andrews

Ups and downs

It was recently announced that we have had one of the hottest years ever and the hottest decade ever, and these press releases seem to be a regular occurrence every mid-January. However, this is contradicted by recent scientific papers.

In January 2020 C Martin was lead author in a team of ten which gives data analysis from two temperature proxies, including pollen in Western Europe. They say: “They both show an early Holocene temperature maximum and a subsequent cooling until present.”

In October H Singh was lead author in an Antarctic study which states “The Antarctic continent has not warmed in the last seven decades, despite a monotonic increase in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases”.

Also in 2020 K. Weckstrom led a team of nine which used diatom species as proxies for reconstructing sea surface temperatures and sea ice concentrations near Greenland.

They plotted graphs showing sea ice cover on an upward trend since 1940 and sea temperatures on a downward trend.

Geoff Moore, Alness, Highland

Suicide gene

Judging by straw polls on social media Jackie Baillie and Iain Gray are way ahead of Anas Sarwar and Monica Lennon in the popular choice for Scottish Labour leader. Their election might take pave the way for the reinstatement of nine Aberdeen councillors suspended for the heinous crime of forming an effective, successful coalition with the Conservative.

But no doubt the electoral suicide gene that drives the party these days will force the latter pair on us underwhelmed voters. Along with appeasement of, and annihilation by, the SNP.

Allan Sutherland, Willow Row, Stonehaven

Case notes

Fraser Grant claims that Scotland has half the cases of England and fewer deaths (Letters, January 14). It is true we have fewer cases just now – but beware the four-week lag behind London – but as far as deaths are concerned the difference is minimal.

National Records of Scotland give the figure of 7, 074 deaths where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate in a population of 5.4 million – 1,310 per million (January 10 2021). The equivalent figure for England is 75,782 deaths in a population of 55.98 million – 1,354 per million.