Calls for Scottish Government to give daily Covid-19 vaccination updates after Johnson promises 'jab by jab' report

The Scottish Government has faced calls to give daily updates on Covid-19 vaccination figures in Scotland after Boris Johnson promised “jab by jab” information across the UK.

A member of the stuff holds the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Abercorn House Care Home in Hamilton.

Updates on the number of people given Covid-19 vaccines in Scotland are currently given weekly by the Scottish Government, but opposition parties have argued this is not frequent enough.

The Scottish Conservatives said there are now “no excuses” for the SNP not publishing such figures, while Scottish Labour has called on the government to “get to grips” with the vaccination programme.

“People need to be given hope. A breakdown each day on the vaccination figures, along with the dosages received by the Scottish Government, will show an end to the pandemic is in sight and provide much needed transparency,” said Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross.

Scottish Labour spokesperson Monica Lennon said: “It’s time for Jeane Freeman to get to grips with the vaccination programme, publish daily figures on the number of vaccinations available and administered, and ensure that our NHS staff do not pay the price of a bungled rollout.”

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said in her Covid-19 update on Tuesday that she must balance giving information and transparency around the vaccination programme with the time and resources needed to produce it.

"I’ve got to balance a whole host of thing right now, and I want the people we’ve got running this vaccination programme to be focussing on getting jags into people’s arms, that’s what matters,” she said.

She added: “We have judgements to make, because we’ve only got so many people in the country who can do all the jobs that need to be done, so we need to think – is daily, as opposed to twice a week or once a week, adding enough additional benefit to justify the time that could be spent on other things.”

Boris Johnson announced on Tuesday that he will give daily updates around vaccine progress from Monday.

"We know that there will still be long weeks ahead in which we must persevere with these restrictions,” he said.

"But I want to give you – the British people – the maximum possible transparency about this vaccine roll out with more detail on Thursday and daily updates from Monday so that you can see day by day and jab by jab how much progress we are making.

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