The Scottish Government’s testing strategy during the coronavirus pandemic is to be investigated by the Health and Sport Committee.
The Parliament Committee is seeking views to find out what role testing should play in helping to tackle the pandemic, and what infrastructure is required to deliver the Government’s test, trace and isolate strategy it aims to introduce by the end of May.
Over the coming weeks, the Committee is undertaking a series of short inquiries into the Scottish Government’s response to the pandemic. On Thursday they will look at the issue of PPE and they are also looking into the Government’s preparedness to deal with any potential ‘second wave’ of the virus, or future pandemic.
This week, the Committee also launched an inquiry into the particular issues faced by care homes during this crisis.
Lewis Macdonald MSP, Health and Sport Committee Convener, said: “The Government’s testing strategy is absolutely pivotal in tackling this crisis and helping to ease in any meaningful way the restrictions on our lives we are all facing.
“The Scottish Government have outlined their wish to adopt a test, trace and isolate strategy from the end of May but we want to make sure the infrastructure is in place to help achieve this.
“We want to look into testing capacity across Scotland and the introduction of antibody tests.
“We’ve seen the success of other countries testing strategies, such as South Korea, Germany and New Zealand, and we want to investigate the science behind our testing approach and whether more could and should have been done to lessen the terrible impact of this virus on our society.”
The coronavirus testing questionnaire is available here. It closes on 18th May.
The care homes survey is available here. It closes on 20th May.
For more information on the work of the Health and Sport Committee, visit the Scottish Parliament website.
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