People Urged to ‘Roll Their Sleeves Up’
22 January 2021
Graeme has got behind a new Scottish Government campaign encouraging people to get vaccinated for COVID-19 as soon as they are eligible.
The ‘Roll your sleeves up’ campaign emphasises the importance of the vaccine and its safety, as well as the prioritisation list set out by Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to ensure those most at risk are vaccinated first.
Vaccination will be offered to 4.5 million people in Scotland and is currently underway for residents of care homes for older people, their carers, frontline health and social care workers, and those aged 80 years and over. Local delivery is being led by NHS boards, who will contact those eligible to arrange their vaccination.
Those aged 70 and over and the clinically extremely vulnerable, including those on the shielding list, will receive their first vaccine dose by mid-February. Those aged over 65 will receive their first doses by the beginning of March.
Vaccination of the wider adult population will commence once the remainder of the JCVI priority groups are completed by early May.
Commenting, Graeme said:
“Vaccination offers hope for a way out of this pandemic – it is critical, alongside lockdown restrictions for the time being and testing.
“While I will rightly be preceded by the most vulnerable, I look forward to rolling up my own sleeve in due course and would strongly urge everyone to take up the vaccine as it is offered to them.
“As we don’t yet know if vaccination stops transmission as well as it stops illness, equally critical is continuing to follow rules in place during the rollout whether you yourself have been vaccinated or not.
“What we do know is that the coronavirus vaccines have been approved for use in this country after comprehensive testing of their safety and effectiveness, which people can read all about via the NHS Inform website.”
Interim Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Dave Caesar, said:
“No matter which vaccine you receive, each has passed a rigorous three-phase testing process, reviewed by independent regulatory and advisory bodies to ensure it is safe and effective.
“Your local NHS health board will be in touch with you to arrange your vaccination appointment when you are eligible, and I encourage everyone to get vaccinated as soon as they are eligible to do so.
“However, vaccination on its own it won’t be enough to win the race against this virus.
“Each one of us needs to do all we can – following the guidance, abiding closely to the restrictions, washing our hands, wearing face coverings, maintaining 2m distance from each other – to slow down the spread of the virus and suppress its prevalence as low as we can, so that increasing vaccination can do the job we need it to do.”
For more information visit nhsinform.scot/rollupyoursleeves or call 0800 030 8013.
The ‘Roll your sleeves up’ campaign will run from 21 January to the end of March 2021 on TV, radio, press, outdoor and digital channels.
As of 21 January:
- 1,100 vaccination sites are operational across Scotland, including over 750 GP practices with a growing core of over 3,000 trained vaccinators.
- Over 90% of residents in care homes for older adults, 70% of staff in those care homes and around half of frontline NHS and social care staff have received their first dose.
