Chamber and committees

Good morning, and welcome to the first meeting in 2022 of the COVID-19 Recovery Committee. This morning, we will take evidence from the Scottish Government on the latest ministerial statements on Covid-19. I welcome to the meeting John Swinney, Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery; Professor Jason Leitch, national clinical director; Penelope Cooper, director of Covid co-ordination; and Niamh O’Connor, deputy director for testing and contact tracing policy. Thank you for your attendance this morning. I wish you all a happy new year, and I hope that you managed to have some sort of break over the festive period.

Deputy First Minister, do you wish to make any remarks before we move on to questions?

Thank you, Deputy First Minister. Your update is appreciated. We will move on to other members.

Thank you, Deputy First Minister. I will ask the first question. We are all cautiously thankful that omicron is not as severe as we first expected it to be when it emerged in early December. With the schools going back in the past week, I want to ask about the effect of omicron on our schoolchildren, especially as most of them have not been vaccinated. Can you update us on vaccinations for the five to 12-year-olds? Is ventilation in school settings adequate as the schools go back?

That concludes our consideration of that item and our time together this morning. I thank the Deputy First Minister and his supporting officials for attending.

The committee’s next meeting will be on 20 January, when we will again take evidence from the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery.

That concludes the public part of our meeting. I move the meeting into private.

We know that the national health service is under a lot of pressure at the moment and, obviously, we knew that it would be. In light of some NHS boards calling in military help and declaring major incidents, can the cabinet secretary provide the committee with a rundown of the position of the other NHS boards?

I will bring you back in for a brief supplementary question, Mr Fraser, but I ask for the answers to be brief, as I really have to move on.

I will bring you back in, Mr Rowley, but, first, it would be helpful to have clarification on self-isolation before we finalise the bill report. Will that be available to the committee before 13 January?

That concludes our consideration of this item, and I thank the Deputy First Minister and his officials for their evidence today.

Item 2 is consideration of the motion on the made affirmative instrument that was considered during the previous item. Deputy First Minister, do you have any further remarks on the SSI before we take the motion?

Thank you for the update. We will move to questions, and I will start. In the past week, there has been a 67.1 per cent increase in the number of lateral flow tests that have been distributed, which is probably because the general public is being cautious because of the new variant. However, I am slightly confused by the daily figures that are being published, which I would expect to be doubling every day. The number of positive cases peaked earlier in the week at just under 6,000, and yesterday it dropped to 2,434. Do you understand why the figures that are being reported are not what we predicted they would be at this stage?

Just a quick one.