Covid vaccine: Will Scotland have enough time to meet jabs target?

Annie Innes, 90, was in one of the first groups of people in Scotland to be vaccinated against Covid

In her Covid update on Tuesday, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she expected "legitimate questions" about the overall number of vaccinations in Scotland compared to other parts of the UK.

The first minister said Scotland had achieved depth in the form of high uptake in priority groups but she said the challenge now was to accelerate on breadth by increasing overall numbers.

Ms Sturgeon again said that the early stages of Scotland's vaccine programme had concentrated on care homes, making sure "we absolutely maximise" uptake in these clinically vulnerable groups.

She said this mattered because these were the groups that were most likely to become ill and die.

In response, Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives at Holyrood, said the Scottish government's vaccination programme was "slow, stuttering and lagging way behind the rest of the UK".

The latest official figures show Scotland is behind the other UK nations on the percentage of people who have received their first injection.

By 3 February, 649,262 people in Scotland had had a first dose - 14.29% of people aged 16 and over (Public Health Scotland's preferred measure).

The equivalent figure for England was 19.05%, Wales was 17.86% and Northern Ireland was 16.47%.

Vaccinations per day

Scotland now needs to be vaccinating about 40,000 people per day to meet its target of giving the first jab to everyone aged 70 and over and those who are clinically extremely vulnerable by 15 February.

On Sunday, the Scottish vaccination figure was just 9,628.

Scotland's National Clinical Director Jason Leitch said Sundays had been a problem because many GP surgeries were closed.

But he added that Scotland now had three mass vaccination hubs up and running and many more large centres open so the daily figure should increase.

The daily figure for vaccinations on Monday was 34,881, the highest yet. And on Tuesday it was 38,484.

On Tuesday, Ms Sturgeon said: "As we make more use of mass vaccination centres for the younger age groups, we expect the daily rate to also increase."

How does this compare internationally?

Overall, more than 9.3 million people in the UK had received a first dose of a vaccine by Monday.

This progress means the UK continues to be among the countries with the highest vaccination rates globally.

What are the targets?

The first target is for all elderly care home residents and staff, frontline health and social workers and those aged 80 and above to have had their first dose by Friday.

On Wednesday the Scottish government reported that 98% of residents in older adult care homes, plus 88% of the staff who work there, had received the first jab.

Based on the latest information, 87% of people aged 80 or over living in the community had been given a single dose.

Although Ms Sturgeon said the figures from health boards needed to be "refined" as their maybe fewer people in this category than they thought.

The actual figure was probably over 90%, she said.

For frontline health and social care workers, the health boards had exceeded their initial target numbers by 35,000 people.

By 15 February, the target is to have vaccinated everyone aged 70 and over - as well as people who are clinically extremely vulnerable.

This will be 1.14 million people in total.

That will require about 40,000 a day to be vaccinated for the next two weeks.

The latest daily figures show that by Tuesday 28% of those aged 75 to 79 had been given their first dose.

How are the other nations doing on targets?

England's Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Monday those who had received a first dose included more than half of the over-70s, plus nine in 10 of the over-80s.

Northern Ireland's vaccine minister said that priority groups one and two, which includes care home residents and staff, those aged over 80 and frontline health workers, had "largely been completed".

But he did not say how many of the over-70s had been completed.

Figures for Wales were not available.

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