One million Covid vaccinations is a wonderful achievement. We must keep up the good work – Scotsman comment

There have been some problems and there are set to be more. However, despite that, the news that more than a million people in Scotland have now received their first dose of a Covid vaccine is absolutely wonderful.
Paramedic Paul Kelly chats with June Wilson ahead of giving her a vaccine inside a holiday coach being used by the Scottish Ambulance Service outside the Culloden Medical Practice near Inverness (Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)Paramedic Paul Kelly chats with June Wilson ahead of giving her a vaccine inside a holiday coach being used by the Scottish Ambulance Service outside the Culloden Medical Practice near Inverness (Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)
Paramedic Paul Kelly chats with June Wilson ahead of giving her a vaccine inside a holiday coach being used by the Scottish Ambulance Service outside the Culloden Medical Practice near Inverness (Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)

Everyone involved in bringing about this landmark achievement – NHS staff, civil servants, the Army, politicians and others – deserves huge praise for their hard work and dedication to the country’s most important task bar none.

They are saving lives, helping to reduce the need for lockdown restrictions that are, necessarily, harming our economy, and bringing us all closer to the happy day when we can finally return to something like normal.

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Each and every one of those million people who have been vaccinated should also take a bow because you are doing something that will not only help yourself but the nation as a whole. You are have done your patriotic duty to help your fellow citizens and should be proud of it.

Well done to one and all.

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That said, there is still considerable work to be done on what Nicola Sturgeon described as “the biggest peacetime logistical exercise that we have ever undertaken in Scotland”.

The bad weather has caused some understandable disruption to the process while Health Secretary Jeane Freeman warned supply issues expected towards the end of this month would cause the rate of vaccination to fall.

Iain Gray, the Labour MSP for East Lothian, also reported that some of his constituents were being asked to travel a round-trip of 40 miles, involving several bus journey or a £120 tax fare, to receive the vaccine, making it difficult and expensive.

The First Minister said arrangements would “never be perfect for people” but agreed that “we need to make sure that people are not being asked to travel inordinate distances or being put in a position in which it is genuinely impractical for them to attend a vaccination appointment”.

The mass vaccination of an entire population is a huge task and one that requires everyone to do what they can to make it work. The sooner it is complete, the sooner we can put this nightmare behind us.

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