IT is quite amazing: two or three weeks ago there were unfounded scare stories about the safety of the vaccines which should protect us from the worst ravages of Covid-19.

Now, with people having seen how contagious and so dangerous the new variant of the virus can be, there is a clamour for people to get their hands on, and their arms filled with, a dose of the vaccine.

And not just a clamour: doctors’ receptionists in Darlington are apparently being abused by a very small minority of callers who are over-anxious to get vaccinated.

This is intolerable. People have to be patient, and they should not selfishly add further pressure to the system by calling their GPs in the hope of winning an early appointment.

In this area at least, the mass flu vaccination programme a couple of months ago seemed to work extremely well with everybody eligible being alerted and then they were speedily jabbed in the drive-through tents.

There is no reason to suspect that the Covid programme will be any less successful, so people really do need to respect the system and especially the people who work in it.