Concern over vaccine deployment to care homes in Scotland

Care homes will not receive the first batches of the Covid vaccine in Scotland because of problems transporting small doses around the country.

The health secretary has said about 65,500 doses of the Pfizer vaccine will arrive in Scotland by next Tuesday. They will initially be stored in freezers in packs of 997 doses.

The first people to receive the jab may have to travel to where the doses are being held.

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said that means care homes would have to wait until the issue of breaking down the vaccines packs into smaller doses is resolved.

She told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme: "The doses come to us in packs of 997 and we need to know to what degree we can pack that down into smaller pack sizes. If we can't, then we absolutely need to bring those who need to be vaccinated to those freezers - to the centres - because there is a limit to how much you can transport the doses once you have defrosted them."

"We don't want to waste any of this vaccine so it's not possible at this point to take it in smaller doses into, for example, care homes."

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Source: BBC News, 3 December 2020