Vaccinations are coming. Yes, the big blue refrigerated Pfizer truck is rolling into town.

The first people will have a needle in their arm protecting them from Covid-19 in just three days time.

It genuinely is hope that next year will be one to look forward to.

However, there was a sobering assessment from Professor Jason Leitch, Scotland’s National Clinical Director ,when speaking about how far away the light that has appeared at the end of the tunnel actually is.

While there are vaccines coming this week, Scotland’s share is only the first batch of 65,000 doses and only 35,000 people will be given it as they need two doses for it to be effective.

Many more obviously has to be delivered and in order to vaccinate everyone over 50, and all the health workers, who are in the first wave, there probably needs to be another vaccine authorized for use.

For the rest of the population, under the age of 50, to get vaccinated that is certainly the case and maybe even more than one other is needed and it will be another six months before that mass vaccination roll out can start to happen.

Then, as the medical and health advisers have said, there need to be enough people, which is as many as possible, take up the vaccine in order for it to be as effective as everyone hopes it will be.

The more people get the jag, when it is available to them, the less coronavirus there will be in circulation and the fewer people there will be getting sick form it, the fewer in hospital as a result and the fewer people there will be dying from it.

And logically the converse is true, the more people who don’t take it the more coronavirus will be circulating and more people will still be getting sick and dying.

There is a problem that not everyone is happy to see the vaccine truck roll into town.

People cannot be forced to take the vaccine and nor should they, but people shouldn’t need to be forced to take it.

To be not willing to get vaccinated against this virus that has brought the world to a standstill is to be willing to allow 2020 to be the first year of many groundhog years.

This, and viruses like it, do not go away of their own accord. They keep going round until either a vaccine or an effective treatment is found to render them impotent.

The development and approval of the first of hopefully many vaccines is our chance to do just that.

The vaccine won’t eradicate coronavirus from the planet or even from the UK.

But it will stop people getting sick and will put and end to the spiral of cases, hospital admissions and deaths that has necessitated the lockdown measures that everyone hates so much.

So, it will allow us to get back to a way of life that allows people to meet family and friends again, allows people to do the things they want and need to do.

And it will allow the economy the room it needs to rebuild and get as many people as possible back into jobs.

One of the arguments that is put forward against mass vaccination programmes is that it is an assault on personal freedom.

To refuse the vaccine and to actively encourage others to refuse it by attempting to delegitimise it, is to continue to deny people the freedoms to meet, socialise and work.

To question the safety on the grounds that it has been delivered quicker than other vaccines and treatments is to ignore the urgency this vaccine required.

It was given the priority it needed, more people were working on its development and it has also, along with the other vaccines, gone through the same rigorous stages of clinical trials needed to prove its efficacy and safety.

Of course, there could be unforeseen complications further down the line as there would with any medicine.

But according to what we are told there is no reason to believe his vaccine is not as safe as any other.

And the fact remains that we do not have any other option. Lockdown after lockdown will not bring an end to the spread of covid-19

The choice we have is put our trust in the science or stick out heads in the sand and put our trust in hope and hope is not a cure.

Some people might be of the view that they are happy to take their chances with catching the virus as they think they are fit and healthy and it will not kill them.

Apart from the fact they must have been living on the moon for the whole of 2020, it is an incredibly selfish position to take.

To do so is to allow others to do the heavy lifting while they, at the same time, are happy to take back the freedoms we have all been denied for so long during this pandemic.

So, if we want to end the nightmare that is 2020 and look forward to 2021 being the year in which coronavirus was finally brought under control, it is the duty of all of us to make it happen.

The scientists, and the volunteers who bravely put themselves forward for trials, have handed us an opportunity.

It is our job to seize that opportunity.

It’s time to roll our sleeves up, folks.