Chamber and committees

Highlands and Islands Enterprise is confident that, together with a robust care, maintenance and replacement programme, the reinstatement works now underway will secure use of the funicular for many years.

The NHS Louisa Jordan was established to help ensure NHS Scotland had extra capacity to treat patients during the COVID-19 pandemic and stood ready to do so since 20 April 2020. Building the NHS Louisa Jordan was a precautionary action and I was always clear that I hoped it would never be needed to treat a COVID patient. The NHS Louisa Jordan has not been required to treat COVID-19 patients because of efforts made to suppress the virus. If required, the hospital continues to remain ready to accept COVID-19 patients at a few days’ notice.

The lease for the Louisa Jordan currently runs until the end of April 2021. If it is necessary to do so, we will negotiate an extension to the lease if the facility is still needed to support our pandemic response. In the meantime we are, perfectly sensibly, putting in place arrangements to allow the facility to be decommissioned when it is eventually no longer needed.

The usage figures for the NHS Louisa Jordan:

September - 2612 attendees

October - 2916 attendees

November to date (19 November) – 2600 attendees

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-31712 on 10 September 2020. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

In Scotland we are fortunate to have evidence which shows us how well local authorities, teachers, other school staff, children and young people have worked to mitigate the risks of Covid-19 since schools reopened. Public Health Scotland publish regular data updates which show the number of tests, and cases, amongst children and young people since the onset of the pandemic.

These data are regularly reviewed, and published by the COVID-19 Education Recovery Group (CERG). In addition, Public Health Scotland (PHS) recently (18 November) published summary statistics on Covid-19 infections in pupils ( https://publichealthscotland.scot/downloads/covid-19-infections-among-school-pupils-in-scotland/ ) and the latest evidence from the Covid-19 Advisory Sub-Group on Education and Children’s Issues ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-evidence-on-children-schools-early-learning-and-childcare-settings-and-transmission-from-covid-19---summary-report/ ) was published on the same day.

Specifically in relation to cases of Covid-19 in schools, PHS data demonstrate that in Scotland in the first 9 weeks of term 1,621 positive test cases were associated with schoolchildren. That is only 0.2% of almost 700,000 school children. Furthermore, the data also shows over 75% of schools in Scotland did not have any pupils at all who tested positive. More detailed analyses are underway and will be available shortly.

The Advisory Sub-Group evidence supports this by showing that the rate of absences among pupils due to Covid-related sickness is low. For example, at 12 November, this represented 0.1% of all pupils. The evidence also shows no difference between Covid-19 positivity rates in teachers and school staff relative to other worker groups of a same age. Nor is there any direct evidence that transmission of the virus within schools plays a significant role in driving rates of infection among children.

The Advisory Sub-Group evidence is informed by reports endorsed by UK SAGE. This reinforces our view that the benefits young people gain from being in school outweigh the overall impact on schools of transmission rates.

Learner absences are being monitored and all currently available data is published on our website. This can be accessed at:

https://public.tableau.com/profile/sg.eas.learninganalysis#!/vizhome/COVID19-SchoolsandChildcareInformation/Introduction

https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

https://www.gov.scot/publications/covid-19-education-recovery-group-children-and-young-people-infographic/

At present, learners who require to learn at home during periods of self-isolation should be supported to receive remote learning. A National e-Learning Partnership between the Scottish Government, Education Scotland, Directors of Education and the e-Sgoil was established in June. Schools and local authorities have been putting their own arrangements in place for localised remote learning for individuals or groups as required since August 2020.

SQA are looking at the role of the exceptional circumstances process for disruptions to individual and small groups of pupils to ensure that their attainment can be fairly recognised.

Our ambition remains for Higher and Advanced Higher exams to proceed if possible. It must, however, be safe to do so and it must be fair to leaners. We are monitoring the position closely and listening to all the different views on this matter. Further evidence and intelligence, including total absences for individual learners, is being gathered to inform any decisions.

Currently, the extent to which children contribute to transmission of Covid-19 is not completely understood. However, Public Health Scotland (PHS) publish data on cases amongst children and young people each week and there are a number of recent publications, which look at transmission, including to households:

The Covid-19 Advisory Sub-Group on Education and Children’s Issues published a summary report on 18 November setting out a brief summary of evidence on children and transmission. This can be found at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-evidence-on-children-schools-early-learning-and-childcare-settings-and-transmission-from-covid-19---summary-report/

The Children’s Task & Finish Group published a paper on 13 November, which was endorsed by UK SAGE, and is available at: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, UK - Office for National Statistics and

Public Health Scotland published summary statistics on 18 November on Covid-19 infections in pupils in Scottish schools, which can be accessed at: https://publichealthscotland.scot/downloads/covid-19-infections-among-school-pupils-in-scotland/

The Scottish Government’s guidance on reducing risks in schools is intended to keep schools safe, open and welcoming. It takes full account of the evolving COVID-19 situation in Scotland, the experience of reopening schools to date, the advice received from scientific and public health experts and the advice of the Education Recovery Group and other key stakeholders including children and young people.

The protective measures set out in that guidance represent the ‘core’ or standard protective measures that should be in place in all schools across all five protection levels within the Strategic Framework. At levels 3 and 4 of the Strategic Framework, some enhanced protective measures have been identified which aim to tackle specific areas of higher potential risk as prevalence increases, including for those people most clinically at risk.

Changes in incidence of COVID-19, and the impact of implementation of this guidance in schools, will be closely monitored at the national and local level. The guidance will be kept under review and updated when necessary.

Flu season in the UK begins in December and reaches it peaks in January and February. Therefore, anyone who gets the seasonal flu vaccine by the end of December will be protected in advance of when we expect incidences of seasonal flu to be at their highest.

The NHS Scotland - winter preparedness plan published 28 October sets out that minimising the impact of the acute pandemic phase through a more extensive flu vaccination programme is a key priority for the NHS and their delivery partners until April 2021. The impacts of seasonal flu are being continually assessed including what mitigating actions and contingencies the NHS has in place.

Public Health Scotland publish weekly information on flu activity in the Seasonal Respiratory Report throughout the flu season (Oct to mid-May). The latest information is available here: https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/population-health/covid-19/weekly-national-seasonal-respiratory-report/

The annual UK Flu Report containing official statistics on Scottish flu activity will be published in 2021.