The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
Displaying 2171 contributions
COVID-19 Recovery Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
John Mason
Okay, thanks.
My final point concerns a question that I put to the earlier panel, which was about the desire to have a chief scientist for public health. Does any of you have an opinion on that?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
John Mason
I am tempted to get into a debate on some of that. As you will probably know, in the political field everyone wants the money to go into accident and emergency, to deal with the actual issues.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
John Mason
That sounds very positive. Does Professor Gunson want to come in?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
John Mason
Seeing as you are there, I will ask you this. I do not totally understand some of the technical stuff that we were given. For example, a Scottish Government report on modelling the spread of Covid-19 says that, in November,
“wastewater Covid-19 levels were in the range of 21 to 32 million gene copies per person per day.”
Can you or one of your colleagues explain even roughly what that means?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
John Mason
The conversation has been really interesting. I have to say that I am not an expert on sewage or related matters.
I will start with a question for George Ponton. What waste water surveillance was going on before Covid, particularly on diseases? What were you actually looking for, and how much water surveillance was happening?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
John Mason
Dr Helliwell, were other countries doing that? Did the idea of testing the water start with Covid?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
John Mason
That is an interesting point. Where I live, people are now trying to separate rainwater from sewage. Is that important? Would that be helpful?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
John Mason
You talked about a correlation regarding testing waste water and testing the samples that health boards were getting directly from people. When new variants came along, who was picking them up first? Was it you, or was that coming from testing?
COVID-19 Recovery Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
John Mason
Right.
COVID-19 Recovery Committee [Draft]
Meeting date: 15 December 2022
John Mason
You have all made the point that it has been good to work across the UK on this. One would presume that there should be UK funding for work right across the UK, so perhaps some of this funding would come from Westminster.