Alex Cole-Hamilton misses bigger vaccine picture - your views

GP surgeries and vaccination centres work together

Alex misses bigger vaccine picture

Alarmed by Alex Cole-Hamilton’s article (News February 3), claiming that GPs were only being sent 100 vaccines a week, I contacted my local surgery to learn they had received all the supplies they needed and had asked for, and have now completed the roll out to the over-75s.

The roll out to the under-75s is currently being done at the vaccination centre now set up at the EICC in Morrison Street. Letters to the 70-74s would be sent out next week.

As Mr Cole-Hamilton will surely appreciate, doctors’ surgeries, being essentially private practices working within the NHS, are of different sizes.

Some are located in large, purpose-built centres, while others, like my own, are in converted Victorian terraces or main door tenement flats with limited space.

Articles have appeared in the UK press suggesting GPs were in doubt as to their capacity to deliver mass vaccination on their premises.

May I suggest, then, that the rollout is not viewed by health boards as being undertaken only in GP surgeries like his friend’s, but in tandem with large vaccination centres, like the one in Morrison Street and the Louisa Jordan in Glasgow. More of these centres are being set up across Scotland.

Channel 4’s Jon Snow was recently vaccinated (on camera) in a converted community centre, suggesting that finding suitable premises for mass vaccination is a factor in England as well as here.

While we are on this sad subject, I was angry that Captain Tom has died of Covid. Why was this man not among the very first to be vaccinated when vaccination began on December 8? In Scotland care homes were prioritised before everyone else.

Mairianna Clyde, Merchiston Crescent, Edinburgh.

My money’s on LSE experts not Hyslop

A new report from experts at the LSE tells us that, if Scotland left the UK, it would be much worse off than it is now

This would apply even if a separate Scotland joined the EU - which is unlikely given that Scotland doesn’t meet EU entry requirements.

Anyone in Scotland who can count knows the truth of this: leaving the UK would trash our standard of living.

Dead on cue we have economy secretary, Fiona Hyslop, denying the report’s findings and trotting out the usual ‘But Denmark, but Norway’ alibis.

Her response would not be complete without reference to the mythical ‘levers’ the SNP tell us would enable a secessionist Scottish government to make a much greater success of running the Scottish economy than the current SNP regime does.

She didn’t mention ferries, BiFab, Prestwick airport, unfinished hospitals or a bridge that is dangerous to travellers when there is ice – all made in Scotland by the SNP.

When is the SNP going to come clean about the extent to which a successful Scotland can be achieved only by remaining in the UK? This LSE report should be read by everyone in Scotland, who should then be asked: ‘Whom do you trust more to tell the truth about Scotland’s economy, expert economists or Fiona Hyslop?’

Jill Stephenson, Glenlockhart Valley, Edinburgh.

Federalism won’t work

I used to support federalism for the UK until I read Matthew Parris ('Don't wreck England just to foil Sturgeon') in The Times .

England is too big to be an equal partner in a federalised structure and there is no appetite for breaking up England into Scotland-sized autonomous provinces.I t doesn't work in Spain and it won't work here.

Steuart Campbell, Dovecot Loan, Edinburgh.