Chamber and committees

The information requested regarding the number patients who have contracted COVID-19 while attending hospital is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

However, on 14 July 2021 the Public Health Scotland weekly report titled “Hospital onset COVID-19 cases in Scotland” shows that up to 20 June 2021 in NHS Lanarkshire there were:

• 493 definite hospital onset cases (first positive specimen date was 15 or more days after admission)
• 270 probable hospital onset cases (first positive specimen on days 8 to 14 of admission to NHS board)
• 203 indeterminate hospital onset cases (first positive specimen on days 3 to 7 of admission)
• 1,223 non-hospital onset cases (first positive specimen on day 1 or 2 of admission)

These statistics are not published with a hospital breakdown. The report can be found at the following link:

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/media/8430/2021-07-14-covid19-hospitalonset-week-24-2021-report.pdf

The Scottish Government does not have the information you require in a readily available format in order to answer this question. In order to answer your question would therefore incur disproportionate costs.

However, information we do have in relation to school pupil attendance and absence throughout the 2020/21 school year can be found here:

COVID19 - Schools and Childcare Information 2021 | Tableau Public

Coronavirus (COVID-19): daily data for Scotland - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Coronavirus (COVID-19): trends in daily data - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

COVID-19 Education Recovery Group: children and young people infographic - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

This information shows the attendance and absence rates over the course of the entire 2020/21 school year (when schools were open for all pupils to return from specific stages).

It shows that attendance generally started at around 95% when schools fully reopened after a lockdown (i.e. August 2020 and April 2021). However, attendance rates slowly fell throughout each term.

However, on any given day, more children and young people were not in school due to non-Covid reasons, and that most pupils not in school due to Covid-related reasons was due to pupils being required to self-isolate. The actual number of pupils who were absent due to having tested positive for Covid (or displaying Covid symptoms) was generally under 1,000 pupils (out of approximately 700,000 pupils) on any given day over the course of the entire school year.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-01153 on 28 July 2021. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government is committed to improving planning and preparedness for any potential future pandemic.

We set out within our first one hundred days to establish a standing committee on pandemics, bringing together scientists and clinicians to advise us on the future risks and to ensure we are as prepared as it is possible to be. We have also committed to a comprehensive public inquiry and we will continue to work with local, regional and national partners to inform and improve pandemic planning and preparedness in Scotland.

Additionally, we continue to work closely with other UK nations to plan and prepare for a range of pandemic diseases.

We give careful consideration to representations made by small producers regarding our proposals for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), including most recently in relation to the impact of COVID-19.

We believe that we have taken account of their concerns in our design for DRS, including by introducing an exemption from the annual £360 fee to register with SEPA for producers with a turnover of £85,000 or less.

As set out on page 52 of the Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), we expect any impacts on the ability of smaller drinks producers to compete in the Scottish market to be minor. The BRIA is available here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/deposit-return-scheme-scotland-full-business-regulatory-impact-assessment-2/documents/ .

It will be for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency as regulator of Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) to assess Circularity Scotland’s performance of its obligations under the DRS Regulations.

We are currently considering our approach to wider monitoring and evaluation of the operation of DRS.

The UK Internal Market Act was imposed on the rest of the UK by the UK Government, despite the refusal of consent from the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments, and poses a direct threat to Scotland’s ability to exercise devolved decision-making across a wide range of devolved policy areas including environmental policy.

We are currently analysing the text of the Act to understand how it could interact with Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme.

The Scottish Government continues to follow the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) guidance for the rollout of our vaccination programme.

The JCVI has from the start advised a rollout of COVID-19 vaccination targeting the most vulnerable first, resulting in an age based rollout, with the oldest, and those with conditions which make them susceptible to COVID-19 being offered vaccinations first.

COVID-19 vaccinations are now open to everyone over the age of 18, who can register for a vaccination online via NHS inform here : Registering for a coronavirus vaccine | The coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine (nhsinform.scot)

Health boards are now also offering drop in clinics, with no pre arranged appointment required. Details of which are different per board area, with further information available here : Vaccine drop-in clinics | The coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine (nhsinform.scot)

Scottish Government officials met with representatives of small drinks producers on 2 July 2021. We will consider their views alongside the findings of the Gateway Review into Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme.

The Gateway Review team for the recent Gateway Review into Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme interviewed representatives of the following:

• Circularity Scotland Ltd
• Food and Drink Federation Scotland
• Lidl
• Scottish Environment Protection Agency
• Scottish Environmental Services Association and Suez
• Scottish Government
• Scottish Grocers’ Federation and G101 Stores
• Scottish Retail Consortium
• Scottish Wholesale Association
• Tesco
• Zero Waste Scotland