Chamber and committees

That is really helpful. Given that I am a cup-half-full kind of guy, I am very hopeful that we will go through the next few months and get to a much better place. However, as you both have highlighted, this variant is of a different character, and there is nothing to guarantee that this will not happen again in the future. A couple of questions pop out from that.

The first one is around finance. There has been debate around finance, Mr Swinney, and I do not want to get into that. My concern here is that, if we continue on this cycle, if I can call it that, it is an inevitability that finance is going to become more and more restricted, which will give us fewer and fewer options for how we respond to another variant as we go on. How are we modelling that? How is the Scottish Government working with others to model globally how we are going to deal with that?

The second part of my question is about what happens if the current cycle continues. We are all weary of dealing with the pandemic. We have already mentioned the behavioural response to restrictions. One of my colleagues talked about the use of check-in apps for track and trace. There are reports that those are being used less. I do not know whether you are aware of it, but there are reports of fans at a football match before the event restrictions were put in place chanting about refusing to have a booster.

We are concerned about disaffection and non-compliance, especially among the young. Do you recognise that? How do we combat that and ensure that a high level of compliance is maintained as we become more weary?

I raised a point about consistency of messaging during the pre-meeting briefing. Driving in this morning, I and a couple of colleagues were listening to a radio programme on which legitimate—[Inaudible.]—were putting forward their thoughts on the omicron variant coming from South Africa and whether it is particularly virulent. One was saying that we need a circuit breaker. The experts were clashing and bumping heads with one another.

We can tell from our postbags and our constituents’ phone calls that there is a lack of understanding about where we are going and what the omicron variant means, which might have an impact on compliance. I have raised the issue that people are angry about being unable to access NHS services. How do we get a consistent message across to the general public so that there is the maximum level of compliance?

My final question is for Professor Leitch. There has been a lot of discussion about the pressure that will be put on the NHS. However, that is not necessarily to do with hospitalisation; it is to do with public services being affected by absenteeism due to Covid. We are seeing that happen increasingly. Are you concerned that the rise of the omicron variant and the speed of that rise will put more pressure—unnecessary pressure—on our NHS than it can cope with?

Earlier, you said that you are having to act on a fast-moving and changing picture. That is exactly the same for every other Government across the world, which suggests that the Westminster Government and the devolved Governments should work ever closer together and have a consistent approach. Where are we with that? Is that happening? I was pleased to hear Chris Whitty’s messaging. Are we working together across the UK on having the same approach?

Yesterday, the First Minister announced that an extra £100 million had been secured, if you like, out of the Scottish budget to try to tackle Covid. A further £220 million from Westminster has been announced. That is £320 million. What is the ask, if it is not £320 million? How short are we in terms of what the Scottish Government would like to have?

I have a specific question for Derek Holliday. We have not really focused on people who are caught in homelessness and addiction. How do we reach out to those communities, bring them into the fold and ensure that they are offered vaccination along with everybody else?

I will move on a little bit from my colleague’s questioning on vaccine hesitancy in the groups that we are discussing. I wonder whether there is inertia and a perceived difficulty in accessing vaccination. Perhaps vaccines are seen as another issue that needs to be dealt with among so many other issues that the people who we are discussing have to face. As Alex Rowley said, do we need to take vaccination to the public rather than waiting for them to come for vaccination? Most people seem to be getting their knowledge from social media and fake news, which is undermining trust. Should overcoming that be the approach that we should be taking? That is a question for Derek Holliday.

I am interested in the term “vaccine hesitancy”. I wonder whether there is almost an inertia within that, in that the vaccine is perceived as being too difficult to access or to travel to. To extend the conversation that we have had so far, and in relation to behavioural difference, do we need to take the vaccine to the public and to ethnic minority groups rather than wait for them to come to the vaccine, for want of a better expression? We have talked about social media, fake news and how people access information. Do we need to be more proactive in taking the vaccine into communities?

Do we have Dr Carey Lunan with us? I am sorry; she is on the next panel. I have got that wrong. In that case, I will put that question to Magda Czarnecka.

I think that Mohammed Razaq wants to comment, too.