From Monday The Scottish Government Covid-19 vaccination programme will extend to care home residents in Scotland.
Cabinet Secretary for Health, Jeane Freeman said that care home residents would be prioritised for receipt of the vaccine from current supplies, but warned that pace of the vaccine delivery programme remains dependent on the supply of doses.
The order in which everyone receives vaccination is set by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
In September JCVI set the order of priority for the vaccine which was amended slightly on 2 December 2020 as they then had data for the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine and some results for the AstraZeneca vaccine, as well as some introductory data for other vaccines under development. The new list added in a category of “all individuals aged 16 years to 64 years with underlying health conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality”:
The revised list of priority for Covid-19 vaccine is now:
- residents in a care home for older adults and their carers
- all those 80 years of age and over and frontline health and social care workers
- all those 75 years of age and over
- all those 70 years of age and over and clinically extremely vulnerable individuals
- all those 65 years of age and over
- all individuals aged 16 years to 64 years with underlying health conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality
- all those 60 years of age and over
- all those 55 years of age and over
- all those 50 years of age and over
It is estimated that taken together, these groups represent around 99% of preventable mortality from Covid-19.
Ms Freeman said: “This is another important moment in our journey through the coronavirus pandemic and I am delighted that we have received the authorisation we need to enable us to vaccinate the most vulnerable people in our care homes.
“Officials in the government and our health boards, along with Pfizer, and the MHRA, have worked really hard to allow this to happen and it is another step on the road to our collective recovery and a return to a more normal way of life.
“We are providing the vaccine to people in care homes according to the order of priority set out by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) and we will work through that order of priority as quickly as vaccine supply allows.
“We are hopeful that subject to further stringent approvals, other vaccines may meet MHRA approval for supply – for example, AstraZeneca and Moderna – enabling more vaccinations to take place at a faster rate.”
“In the meantime it remains vital that we all stick to the published restrictions and follow public advice to keep suppressing the virus to as low a level as possible.”
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