PUBLIC confidence in the coronavirus vaccine is “absolutely crucial”, Scotland’s national clinical director Jason Leitch has said.
Professor Leitch said he was not “overly worried” about a new study in South Africa which found the Oxford/AstraZeneca jag was not effective at preventing mild illness caused by the more infectious mutation.
The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, led to South Africa suspending its rollout of the British-designed vaccine.
Speaking to the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland radio programme, Professor Leitch said that while people were right to be cautious, everything pointed to the vaccine creating greater immunity in older people.
The initial trials of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jag were “relatively small”, he said, though he was not “overly worried” by the new South African study.
Professor Leitch said: “Public confidence in vaccines is absolutely crucial and our data would suggest that’s not a big problem, in fact quite the opposite.
“If you told me three months ago that 94% of over-80s would take this injection, I genuinely would not have believed you.”
READ MORE: All adults in Scotland may have first vaccine by summer
Those in younger age groups tended to be less keen to take up other vaccines, he said.
Professor Leitch added: “Everybody in the scientific community says 80% is kind of where you should aim for.
“So if you’re going to set yourself a target, set yourself a target of 80%.
“But we want more than that, we got 99.4% of care home residents, there’s a tiny number who are not eligible or they turned it down for whatever reason.
“So that’s what I want in the 30-year-olds when we get to the 30-year-olds.”
It comes Jeane Freeman said all adults in Scotland could have had their first Covid jag by the summer.
More than 50,000 Scots were inoculated on Saturday, smashing the previous record by some considerable distance.
Freeman told the BBC’s new Sunday Show that the Government’s ambition was to get through all 4.5 million adults in Scotland “in the summer”.
She added: “Now, at this point, it is not very sensible to give specific dates because there are a number of unknowns, partly what the [Joint Committee on vaccines and immunisation JCVI] tells us, and partly about supplies.
“What is the case is that our infrastructure to do that is there. We have the vaccinators, we have the support staff, we have the local and the regional centres able to do it so we’ve just to keep going. As fast as we get supplies, we’ll be vaccinated.”
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon welcomes record daily vaccination figures
Asked to give a broad outline of when shops or pubs might open, the Health Secretary said it was impossible to give that as it wouldn’t be “fair”.
Freeman said the Government’s priority was education, and any reopening couldn’t risk allowing kids returning to school.
“We need to learn from our previous experiences,” she said. “And that is every time you ease the restrictions, and of course that’s what we all want, you see a rise in case numbers. So you have to have them as low as you can possibly go.”
Freeman said the Government was on schedule to hit targets depending on supplies. She also said that there would, effectively be two work streams on the programme starting in March, with second doses going to those already jagged, while first doses start going to the under-50s.
The Health Secretary said the Government were still waiting on the JCVI’s guidance on the how those jags should be prioritised.
“The Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation that give us their best clinical advice about who is most important to vaccinate, and in what order, are looking now at what they want to tell us, and advise us for the under 50s.
“We should know that fairly soon. And at that point, we’ll make our decisions about what we do.”
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