Beer giant Brewdog has offered its shut venues to be used as vaccination centres for the NHS.
Tagging First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock on Twitter, brewery co-founder James Watt wrote: “We would like to offer our closed
@BrewDog venues to help with a quick roll out of the vaccine. For free.
He added: “We have waiting areas, huge refrigerators, seperate rooms for vaccinatations [sic] and an ace team who can help organise.”
Hi @MattHancock & @NicolaSturgeon
We would like to offer our closed @BrewDog venues to help with a quick roll out of the vaccine. For free.
We have waiting areas, huge refrigerators, seperate rooms for vaccinatations and an ace team who can help organise.
We want to help. pic.twitter.com/xljizBcfGx
— James Watt (@BrewDogJames) December 31, 2020
The first minister responded to the offer within 15 minutes, saying: “Thank you. I’ll pass this on to our vaccination team.”
Fellow north-east business Piggery Smokery also offered to help, suggesting its van could be used to run supplies between the Brewdog sites.
We got a small VW van – Piggery-Smokery would donate that to the cause – could use it as a runner to go 'get stuff' between the BD sites if that helped out? – 01975564136 mark@piggery-smokery.co.uk @MattHancock @NicolaSturgeon – admittedly a tiny offer but here if required…… https://t.co/mcdHX5FdVL pic.twitter.com/RjY2J6qO6x
— Piggery-Smokery (@Baconeer1) December 31, 2020
The Covid-19 vaccination programme – the largest in the history of the NHS – will move up a gear on Monday as the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine starts to be rolled out across the UK.
Scottish Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said earlier today that there were 2,300 registered vaccinators in Scotland who would be prepared to assist.
She also said the country would receive 44,000 vaccines in its first shipment at the start of next week.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is easier to store than others including the Pfizer-BioNTech one, as it does not need to be kept at extremely low temperatures.
That means it can be distributed to a wider variety of places, as long as they have a standard fridge for storage.
This will make it simpler for high-priority groups such as over 80s who live at home to receive the vaccine at their nearest GP surgery, pharmacy – or local bar.