Covid: Scotland needs more people to vaccinate the population, not more accountants and SNP spin – John McLellan

There is no denying Edinburgh’s Covid infection rates have shot up in recent weeks, with Public Health Scotland now reporting 1,113 positive cases here in the seven days to January 9, but district-by-district, the situation remains patchy.

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman's claim about problems with the UK government's delivery of the Covid vaccine was quickly debunked, says John McLellan (Picture: Andy Buchanan)

Murrayfield, Abbeyhill, Bruntsfield and Greenbank are classified as “virus suppressed” while Liberton, Corstorphine, Drylaw and Stenhouse are all reported as having the equivalent of over 400 cases per 100,000 people.

In real terms, that’s 29 new cases out of 5,692 people in Corstorphine and 15 cases out of 3,646 people in Liberton.

It’s still a lot of infected people, no-one can minimise the impact on those most sick or the need for everyone to keep safe, but with new restrictions on click-and-collect and takeaways, it does bring some perspective to the increasingly dire warnings from politicians and medics.

Lothian hospitalisation numbers at 190 as of Tuesday seem to have stabilised over the past fortnight, although with 15 patients in intensive case, the highest in the second spike, the pressure on the most acute services is clearly not diminishing.

The need for more clarity about the vaccine programme remains high, hardly helped by Health Secretary Jeane Freeman’s claim that problems lay with UK government delivery, only for that to be quickly debunked.

It now transpires that in September the Scottish government agreed a £2.3m contract with accountants KPMG to provide “extended flu and Covid vaccination programme management and advisory services”.

Most people would rather the money was spent on more vaccinators than accountants, but there can be no excuses.

John McLellan is a Conservative councillor for Craigentinny/Duddingston

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