Opinion Matrix: Scots and UK governments 'look like world's most incompetent' over Covid

he leader warned there is now confusion and mixed messages surrounding jab guidance.

As medial chiefs performed a U-turn over second doses of the Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca injections, it sparked concerns about muddled information from those guiding the vaccine programme. The paper said Prof Hugh Pennington rightly warned that many Scots will be asking: "What the bloody hell is going on?"

It said: "It is vital that the public have confidence both in the jabs themselves and in those tasked with ensuring the vaccination effort runs smoothly and efficiently.

"After all, the Pfizer and Oxford vaccines are at the forefront of Britain's battle to defeat the coronavirus.

"Yet care home residents - among the most vulnerable in the country - have been left scared and confused by the medical authorities' change of heart.

"After a dreadful 2020 for our frail and elderly, the last thing they need is something that adds to their worries.

"So let's get a grip on this."

 Sunday Mail

The paper said it was now up to the UK and Scottish governments "which increasingly look like the most incompetent in the world" to do their bit and deliver these game-changing drugs.

"It beggars belief that, within weeks of the vaccination programme being announced to great fanfare, it now appears to be descending into chaos," said its leader.

"NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has admitted it can't guarantee people will receive a second dose of a vaccine which will be the same make as the first - despite there being no data on whether mixing the drugs offers effective protection.

"Meanwhile, instructions to give a second dose within three or four weeks are now also up in the air after UK-wide guidelines were changed to 12 weeks.

"Again, there is no testing data on the consequences of diverging from the manufacturer's instructions.

"It is outrageous that care home residents - who were among the first to receive a first jab in Scotland - may now face up to three months waiting to be fully inoculated with no guarantee on which second jab they will receive."

Sunday Times

Its leader said that Boris Johnson must be realistic about the "vast challenge ahead" as coronavirus figures have become a "horror story", with new infections regularly topping 50,000 and the death toll rising towards the numbers seen in the spring.

While it said there has been an "inevitable backlash" over the delay of the second vaccine dose, the government can making a riding out of that reaction a lot easier if the vaccine rollout meets "both our expectations and the promises made by ministers".

It said: "By the start of the Oxford-AstraZeneca launch, only just over half a million doses will be available. The plan is to increase that to two million doses a week later this month, although at that rate it will take more than six months to inoculate the UK's adult population even with a single dose. Ministers have already begun muttering about global supply issues, claims that are contradicted by the manufacturers, although the UK may be suffering from a lack of domestic vaccine manufacturing capacity."

While the vaccination programme offered "the light at the end of this gloomy tunnel", it said "the reality has to match the hope".

"Alongside daily figures for infections and deaths, we need daily data for the number of people being vaccinated so performance can be monitored," it said. "Vaccination must be the overriding priority on which the government's competence will rightly be judged. This is a matter of life and death. The public will not forgive politicians for getting this wrong."