Nicola Sturgeon: 'Healthy competition' between Scotland and England can speed up vaccine roll-out

Nicola Sturgeon has said "healthy competition" between Scotland and England could speed up the Covid vaccine roll-out as she warned lockdown is "very unlikely" to end this month.

The First Minister said the two countries striving to be the first to vaccinate their adult population may not be a "bad thing as it makes us all run faster."

She insisted that Scotland was not already falling behind despite official figures showing England has vaccinated a higher proportion of its population, and seven mass vaccination centres opening this week south of the Border.

But her denial came as an email to GPs in the Edinburgh area warned similar centres may not open in Scotland until Feb 15 thanks to a possible delay in the creation of a national booking system.

Family doctors were warned to expect a "couple more weeks of frustration" as supplies of the Pfizer and Oxford vaccines were not expected to become reliable until Jan 25.

The SNP government said the email, sent on Jan 8 by the Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership, included "inaccuracies" and insisted a national scheduling system would be ready this month.

But it also emerged that the SNP government is yet to ask for support from the British Armed Forces' Vaccine Quick Reaction Force, which is already helping to prepare seven NHS England regions for "surge support" to the roll-out.

Ms Sturgeon said 330,000 doses had been delivered to Scotland so far, but the UK Government insisted the true figure was 560,000 - a total she appeared to agree with the previous day.

The Scottish Government said a further 170,975 doses were "available but not yet delivered." However, officials did not explain what this meant, or whether they were in Scotland.

The Scottish Tories said the SNP government was on course to fall short of its target to vaccinate 560,000 by the end of this month by around 130,000 unless the roll-out accelerates.

A further 12,565 Scots have received their first dose, it was announced yesterday, taking the total to 175,942. In England the total rose by 140,441 to nearly 2.5 million.

The row broke out as Ms Sturgeon warned that the wholesale lifting of lockdown at the end of the month was "very unlikely" and no restrictions at all may be eased.

The First Minister is expected to unveil proposals on Wednesday to shut down more sectors of the economy in the hope of stemming the new, more transmissible Covid strain. Construction, manufacturing, takeaway food and 'click and collect' retail services could all be axed or curtailed.

Jeane Freeman, her Health Secretary, will also publish the Scottish Government's latest vaccination plan. However, a series of her previous targets and deadlines have already been radically scaled back.

She had hoped to vaccinate a million Scots by the end of this month but this has been scaled by to 560,000, including the over-80s. The over-70s are to be given their first dose by mid-February.

However, Ms Sturgeon denied that the UK Government publishing a 47-page vaccine delivery plan, opening mass vaccination centres and allowing GPs to prioritise vaccinations over routine care meant England was better prepared than Scotland.

Speaking at her daily Covid briefing, she said "the nature of our geography" and the different structure of the Scottish NHS meant there would be less emphasis on large, centralised vaccination centres.

Ms Sturgeon said some, including the media, viewed the roll-out as a "competition" between the home nations.

"And maybe a bit of healthy competition around this is not a bad thing as it makes us all run faster," she continued.

"But no government wants anything other right now than to go as fast as it possibly can."

She said there was an "apparent difference" in the early days, with England slightly ahead, because Scotland focused more on vaccinating care home residents and this took longer than community-based vaccination.

A UK Government source said: "It's absolutely not a competition and, as the First Minister herself explained, there are differences in geography and demography that render comparisons meaningless.

"The important thing is the UK Government delivers as much of the vaccine as possible and the Scottish Government has an operation in place that is capable of delivering that vaccine when it arrives."

The email to Edinburgh's GPs said mass and local clinics were due to start on Feb 1 "but there may be delay in the delivery of the national booking system, which might knock this back to Feb 15."

It also confirmed that the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC) will be the main venue in the capital for mass vaccinations, with a deal also being worked on to use the Royal Highland Centre and Queen Margaret University in Musselburgh.

Jamie Stone, the Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, yesterday pressed Ben Wallace in the Commons to remind the SNP government that the Vaccine Quick Reaction Force was available to help.

The Defence Secretary replied: "At the moment, we haven't received a request for the use of some of these quick reaction vaccine teams but they are for the taking if they are asked for. I am very happy to support and sign off any request like that."

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "The vaccination programme is functioning well across Scotland – and it is entirely incorrect to claim otherwise. The Army is already supporting planning activity at a national and local level across Scotland, and we will continue to look at how the Armed Forces can help the rollout of vaccines.

"The Health Secretary recently approved additional support from the army for rolling out the vaccine. The national scheduling system, built on NSS Service Now, will be ready this month and we anticipate no delay to appointments during the roll-out."