BORIS Johnson must be thanking his lucky stars that the successful vaccine roll-out by the NHS has masked the UK Government’s deplorable management of the coronavirus pandemic (lest we forget, the UK still has the highest Covid-19 death toll in Europe which has suffered the tragic consequences of the Alpha variant spawned on Westminster’s doorstep).

He also must be thankful, at least in the short term and with a little help from the media, that currently-required coronavirus self-isolations in England are perceived as having caused the shortage of food and other supplies in our supermarkets when the Brexit debacle should be the primary focus of the public’s ire.

Of course in Scotland he can rely on both Tory and Labour MSPs to distract from these disasters, and other failings like "The Plan" for social care that hasn’t yet seen the light of day or the manifesto commitment to overseas aid that was ruthlessly abandoned.

Step up Annie Wells and Jackie Baillie to seek fault with the Scottish Government’s vaccine roll-out performance ("Sturgeon accused of ‘humiliating’ failure to meet vaccinations target", The Herald, July 26) which through NHS Scotland has generally proceeded very well and exceeded all projected vaccine delivery rates (with Scotland leading the UK in most coronavirus performance statistics).

So far only 76 per cent of 40 to 49-year-olds have been double-vaccinated in spite of Nicola Sturgeon’s stated ambition (with 91% already vaccinated once and everyone in this cohort having already been offered second jags) and while every effort should be made to increase this percentage, a little objective perspective would aid appreciation of the overall context.

While the UK Government continues to stall on holding a full public coronavirus inquiry and UK ministers continue to dodge responsibility for the unfolding catastrophe for Scotland and Scottish businesses that is Brexit, is it too much to hope that opposition MSPs will endeavour to address the "big issues" on behalf of their Scottish electorates?

Stan Grodynski, Longniddry.

POINT-SCORING IS LAMENTABLE

I NOTE that Scottish Labour has been doubling down on its assertion that the gap between first and second doses should be narrowed from the current eight-week wait. That is despite scientific research last week showing that the eight-week gap is the "sweet spot" for protection.

In the face of this conclusive scientific study, did Labour back down? No, it continued to insist that it knew best and that the gap should be reduced from eight to four weeks. Notwithstanding the fact it could not provide any scientific evidence for reducing it by half, it demonstrates again that Labour has not learned its lessons from the past. Previous Labour governments have made decisions that still have consequences for the party today and their reckless decision-making is on show once again with vaccination.

It beggars belief that a political party would go against JCVI advice and insist that the Government overruled the body. That would be a decision that has never been taken before. Throughout rollouts of the flu jag and such like the committee's advice has never been overruled, but during possibly the most important vaccine rollout of our time the Labour Party wants us to go against that.

Scottish Labour has a long road ahead of it to demonstrate its relevance in Scotland and that it can be trusted to make the best decisions. Putting lives at risk in favour of political point-scoring is not going to do it any favours.

Stephen Sime, Stirling.

VACCINE RECORDS SYSTEM A SHAMBLES

AS I was hunting for my passport – why I need it is another story – I came across my old vaccination certificates. They were all years out of date, but there they all were, smallpox, yellow fever, cholera, typhoid and paratyphoid. It was all so simple, you made an appointment with the relevant authority, I see from the issuing stamp I had mine done in the Glasgow Corporation Immunisation Centre, told them why and for which disease, they had a pile of blank certificates, if it was a repeat you took along your original. They then vaccinated you, filled in your name, date of birth and sex. That was it, valid worldwide, no fuss, no hassle.

Compare that to today's shambles. Only a committee of civil servants could think up such a useless, complicated, and inept system, with so many manual inputs between transferring details from one computer to another, each of which could and has led to mistakes and omissions.

The powers that be are thinking about making such certificates compulsory to get a beer? I give up.

George Smith, Clydebank.

THREE-JAG TRICK

LAST week (July 22) you published a letter from me about the failure of the NHS database to record my second vaccination done in April. A couple of days later I received yet another letter from the NHS urging me to get my "second" vaccination.

I had no side-effects from my previous Pfizer vaccinations so yesterday I went to the local drop-in centre and was vaccinated again. The NHS database is now satisfied that I've had two vaccinations. Perhaps others whose vaccinations have not been recorded in the database might try this as well. It's far quicker and more effective than trying to get the database corrected.

Dave Gordon, Scone.

A LEAP IN LOGIC

THE Scottish Government insists that cross-border trains cannot enter Scotland with the same passenger loading allowed in England. Will aeroplanes heading for Glasgow or Edinburgh soon have to descend to about two thousand feet over Carlisle and half of the passengers parachute to the ground to complete their journey by other means from there?

Duncan Sooman, Milngavie.

COVID HAS BROKEN THE BACK OF THE NHS

IT is gratifying Alasdair Galloway (Lettersy, July 27) appreciates the crisis in the NHS but he may not appreciate the fundamental problems, or the changes required to save the NHS.

The problem now and in multiple past winter crises when, even pre-Covid, more than 350,000 patients missed a statutory 12-week waiting time is that the NHS model of take-all general hospitals cannot cope with the demands of huge numbers of acutely unwell patients who require a hospital bed. This means using elective surgical beds, thus preventing elective surgery. Only in the Golden Jubilee, which is not an acute receiving hospital, and in private hospitals does this not happen, and elective work can continue without interruption. Why were Covid patients not admitted acutely to the Louisa Jordan, thus sparing the district general hospitals? Because there were no staff, and there never could be staff.

Mr Galloway may confuse the Louisa Jordan with the long-proposed elective surgical factories which are to be opened in various boards throughout Scotland, which may go some way to resolve the problem I have indicated. However with the present limited numbers of surgical staff in the NHS it may be 10-12 years before they can be fully staffed and operational. A possibility of which the NHS must beware is that many senior surgeons, anaesthetists and nursing staff may be so burnt out from Covid they will take early retirement from the toxic NHS, perhaps to work part time in the Titanium operating on NHS patients. Already a serious pension crisis has driven many senior doctors to early retirement from the NHS.

The NHS in Scotland has never had the capacity to provide all care free at the point of need, the fundamental principle of the NHS. Covid is the proverbial straw which has broken the back of the NHS. I would never advocate privatisation but the hypocrisy of the Government which continues to claim all will be well when "demands decline to normal levels" should not be accepted. The NHS has not for years coped with normal levels of demand, and to imagine the NHS can deal with a 1.5 million patient backlog, while also dealing with new presentations is unrealistic and misleading. Normal levels in the Scottish NHS as a provider of care for the population are multiple levels of failure, and for reasons I cannot fathom have been accepted by the public for the last 15 years.

Gavin R Tait FRCSEd, East Kilbride.

TAKING LEAVE OF THEIR SENSES?

IT is difficult to know how serious Val Simpson (Letters, July 26) is when she raises the matter of houses and flats being bought just over the Border in England by disillusioned Scots. These people, she suggests, are moving to a "country where transparency is more the norm and where reasonable standards are maintained". She then suggests this might be the beginning of a "brain drain".' I would suggest that anyone moving south of the Border in search of these qualities would – to rehearse an old joke – lead to a rise in IQ on both sides of the Border.

Dr Angus Macmillan, Dumfries.

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