PUBLISHING daily vaccination figures is “vital” for public confidence, say opposition parties who are calling on the government to be more transparent in its rollout of the vital jag.
Unlike the UK Government which is publishing more up-to-date statistics, public health chiefs in Scotland have not updated information on the number of people vaccinated since December 23.
The Scottish Tories’ health spokesman, Donald Cameron, thinks that seeing the numbers would encourage a faster roll-out of the vaccine and encourage confidence in the process.
He said: “It’s a question of transparency. This has been billed as a race between the vaccine and the virus.
“For us to be able to judge how well we are doing in the race we need to know these figures.”
He added: “There are now no excuses left for the SNP government to dodge publishing daily vaccination rates alongside the daily infection numbers as soon as possible.
“It’s vital the SNP start communicating clearly who will receive the vaccine and when.”
Scottish Labour has also backed calls for the government to improve its roll-out of the vaccine.
The party’s health spokeswoman, Monica Lennon, demanded that the Health Secretary “get to grips with the vaccination programme”.
She added: “It’s time for Jeane Freeman to 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.”
It comes after we told yesterday how NHS workers were forced to wait for hours in the freezing cold after vaccinations were delayed at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.
Staff were furious about the delay, for which the health board has since apologised.
Ms Lennon described the scenes as “simply unacceptable” noting that workers were made to queue while they should have been working as the health system battles a new peak of the virus.
After the delays on Tuesday, Mr Cameron called for an urgent probe into the cause of the delay.
He said: “Reports of NHS staff having to wait hours in freezing conditions for the vaccine are also very concerning and must be investigated immediately.”
The health board issued an apology late on Tuesday night and blamed the delay on a scheduling issue which meant staff who were expected to provide vaccinations had not shown up.
A spokeswoman said that people who missed their appointments would be given another slot.
According to the latest data, by December 20, 56,676 people in Scotland had received their first dose of the Covid vaccine. The first vaccine was given on December 8.
The UK Government has started publishing more detailed data on the rollout and yesterday Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the Commons that over 1.1 million people had been immunised in the country as a whole with 1.1 million of these in England.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “The Health Secretary will update parliament next week on the next steps and further logistical detail of the vaccination programme, and has committed to giving as much detail as we can while rightly allowing our teams to focus on the task of delivering the biggest vaccination programme ever seen in Scotland.”
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