Chamber and committees

They should be able to receive their booster jag here. There may be some individuals in a particular category who have issues, and any members who have constituents in that position should let us know and we will look into the individual circumstances.

In general, anyone who is eligible for a booster in Scotland and has not received an appointment or cannot get one through the website can call the helpline on 0800 030 8013. That includes anyone who has received one or both doses outside of Scotland. If you do not have an appointment, call the helpline and they will assist you to get one.

The programme for over-70s will be completed as soon as everybody who is going to come forward for a vaccination has come forward. People in the over-70 age group have been receiving invitations since early October and the vast majority are already vaccinated, so if anybody in that age group is not vaccinated, it is because they have chosen not to be or have been unable to come forward and get vaccinated.

We continue to put out the message that if you are one of those people, it is not too late to get vaccinated. Go online, book an appointment, phone the helpline, the number of which I have just given, and get an appointment. Everybody in that age group who wanted a vaccination has been offered one, and we are now working rapidly through the other age groups and will continue to do so.

I will not. I do not think that, at this stage, instructing that on a blanket basis would be right or appropriate—or the best use of resources that are under pressure, although they are coping very well. Today, of all days, I am not very sympathetic to any criticisms of our contact tracing teams, who are doing heroic work right now to identify and understand the transmission patterns of those cases.

We can use—and are using—targeted enhanced testing where cases are identified. That will start with the testing of close contacts of those cases, because we want close contacts to isolate as well. It is important to note that health protection teams are best placed to understand and judge where enhanced testing should be used.

There might be instances in which door-to-door testing is appropriate, as was the case earlier this year in the south side of Glasgow, but that has to be driven by the assessment of health protection teams. In relation to the nine cases and the look-back surveillance that is being done, door-to-door testing would not necessarily be the right use of resources at this point. However, if health protection teams think otherwise, they have the ability and the resources to get on and do that.

No, it does not necessarily mean either of those things. It is not necessarily the case that we suddenly think that immunity is waning faster, but we have a new variant that some think may manage to evade the immunity of the vaccines or natural immunity from past infection. Getting as many antibodies into people as possible—to be non-clinical in how I express it—becomes all the more important. That is the rationale for reducing the gap at this stage.

We do not yet know what the frequency of the vaccination programme will be in the years ahead. My working assumption is that, like for flu, it will be a regular programme. We should certainly be planning for that. We do not yet know, but it may be a regular three-dose vaccination programme, or there may be developments in the vaccines that enable a single dose. There is so much that we do not know yet, and we need to get on with doing what we do know about, which is getting boosters to as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

Information on the numbers in different age groups who have been vaccinated with the booster is regularly published. That information is available.

It has been reflected in some of the questions and answers today that there is mixed provision of access to booster vaccinations. That is right, because not every part of the country is the same, and there has to be a reflection of the geographical position. We continue to address and resolve any localised issues whereby access has been difficult.

Overall, it is really important to stress that the vaccination programme is going incredibly well. I think that most people across the country recognise that. I think that, from yesterday’s figures, just over 34 per cent of the over-12 population have been vaccinated with booster jags; that compares with Wales, at 31.5 per cent, or England, at 31 per cent. We are therefore significantly ahead. Of course that does not mean that everybody is having a flawless experience, and we will address that as often, as far and as quickly as we can.

Those who are working in the programme are literally saving lives every single day. They are doing that at pace and with the utmost determination, and all of us owe them the most immense debt of gratitude.

We have to continue to judge the proportionality of all the measures, protections and restrictions. There is no doubt that having some protections in place now will avoid the need for restrictions later. However, it is not possible—legally and in other ways—to give a blanket commitment to keep anything in place indefinitely. We have a legal requirement to test the proportionality of measures on an on-going basis, which is why we have three-weekly reviews.

I take the point that Gillian Mackay makes about the importance of measures to detect whether new variants are coming into the country. The new variant appears to have been detected very quickly. It has been detected in southern Africa—all credit to the Governments there for doing that so assiduously and so quickly. That does not mean that the variant originated in any of those African countries—we do not know about that yet. However, it underlines the importance of having good surveillance and detection measures in place. Testing will always be a part of that, but we have to ensure that any measures remain proportionate and are not kept in place for any longer than necessary.

Annabelle Ewing’s first point is important. There is no absolute one-size-fits-all approach to how health boards are delivering vaccinations; some are, at different stages, using drop-in clinics, and that is appropriate. It is about getting to people as quickly as possible through a variety of routes, and that will continue to be the approach.

On public awareness, we already have television, radio, digital and outdoor campaigns to remind the public of the key protections that are in place and the need to comply with them. We will intensify those campaigns over the winter, to ensure that everybody knows what is being asked of them. We will put particular stress on the request to people to test themselves before they go to the pub or a restaurant, before they visit someone in their house over Christmas and before they go Christmas shopping. That is really important and can do a lot to help us to break chains of transmission.

Local authorities and the police, too, continue to take action to raise awareness in particular settings. There will be a big focus on making sure that people understand what we are asking them to do.

All that is important, but after two years, I think that we all know what works against this virus; we are all just tired of doing it—and I include myself in that. That is why this is an important moment for all of us to up our compliance again, so that we can stop not just the new variant but the virus generally in its tracks and mitigate the risks over winter.

I will not repeat my answer on mass vaccination centres; I set out the rationale and the thinking on them. I underline the point that we are currently the most vaccinated part of the UK, in particular on booster jags.

On the important issue about getting uptake—in all age groups—some 50 to 59-year-olds are not vaccinated yet, and until yesterday, when the gap between the second dose and the booster dose was reduced, some were not yet eligible for their booster. I am in that category: I would not have become eligible for my booster until later in December, but because of yesterday’s change I have been able to go online and book an earlier appointment. Lots of appointments are becoming available every day. That will continue to be the case. I say to everyone who is in a similar position to me: try now to bring forward your booster appointment.

We cannot vaccinate everyone on a single day or even in a single week. This will take a number of weeks for us to work through. We will do it in the order of priority that the JCVI recommends. We will get through this as quickly as possible, because it is our best line of defence in the period ahead.

It would not really be the role of the JCVI to do that, although it is integrally involved in advising Governments about who to vaccinate.

However, I know that such discussions are on-going all the time. Members will have heard many representatives of vaccine companies talking in the media in recent days: those companies are already thinking about how they may need—it is “may” at the moment, as we do not yet know the impact—to change or adapt their vaccines to deal with the new variant. Some of them have given indications—as I heard Pfizer do publicly the other day—of how long they think that that will take. That work is already under way.

Given how quickly, relatively, the vaccines were developed from a standing start, I think that we can have confidence that the scientific community and vaccine developers and manufacturers are well placed to do anything that is required. However, we do not yet know that the vaccines are less effective, so let us not assume that at this stage. Even if that is the case, the current vaccines will still be hugely important.

Like all health boards, Greater Glasgow and Clyde will judge what health facilities it needs, and if any health boards want to discuss with us the establishment of a vaccination centre on that scale, we will discuss that and the resource implications. There is no doubt that the Louisa Jordan did a fantastic job. What I am about to say is not intended as any criticism of those who did so much work there—it is in the nature of those very large centres—but I think that it had the highest “did not attend” rate in the country.

Members have heard me say this many times: there is a constant balance that needs to be struck between big throughput and speed of access and local accessible availability. Many members raise the inconvenience of people having to go somewhere such as the Louisa Jordan. Health boards are striking that balance really well, but with the kind of extension that we have had as of yesterday, we have to rethink whether any of those different approaches are appropriate. That process is under way right now and will continue right throughout this programme and into the next one, which I fear will come before we know where we are.