Chamber and committees

I accept those points and that is why I make my plea to people. I do not think that it is just 18 and 19-year-olds—

That is nothing new. However, I am taking tests more frequently because of the degree of interaction that I now have in the course of my responsibilities.

That is a very significant and legitimate question. In my answers to Mr Rowley’s completely legitimate questions about expanding the scale of the vaccination programme, I made the point that one of the options could be turning down the dial on elective work and putting more resource into the vaccination programme. If I do that—I do not wish to personalise this, but I will use these distinguished members of Parliament to illustrate my point—Mr Rowley might be more happy, but Mr Whittle will not be. Mr Whittle’s primary concern is the treatment of what I will call non-Covid conditions that are perhaps leading to early mortality because health services are unable to undertake all that we would ordinarily hope they would be able to.

That is why we have to invest in all the precautionary measures possible to avoid the virus circulating. We are not in any shape or form powerless with regard to omicron circulating, because people can come forward for vaccination, which they are doing in substantial numbers, and they can observe the baseline measures on a routine and rudimentary basis in order to put up barriers to circulation.

There are all sorts of steps that we can take. It is incredible to watch what our contact tracers are doing in response to the early cases of omicron. It is jaw dropping to see the degree of intensity with which they are looking at where people have been, whom they have been close to and what is happening around them, to try as much as possible to interrupt the circulation of the virus.

We have to use a variety of devices because, the more we do that, the more activity we will have to try to address the core point that Mr Whittle puts to me.

Yes, the issue has been resolved. I very much regret that some individuals had that experience yesterday. The guidance has changed and it should have been applied in all vaccination centres and scenarios.

In light of what emerged yesterday—I am advised that the issue arose in a limited number of cases—we have reiterated the guidance to all health boards to ensure that all vaccination centres are operating to the new updated guidance, which emerged only at the start of the week.

I regret that some individuals were inconvenienced in that way. The fact that people are so willing to come forward for the booster jag at such an early stage after the change of guidance is an indication of public attitude to participation in the programme, which is welcome. That makes it doubly disappointing that people were inconvenienced in the way that they were.

There is no issue regarding vaccine capacity. Obviously, we have to go through the process of vaccination in an orderly fashion to ensure that it is done efficiently. We have already expanded significantly vaccine availability as part of the programme.

The change in JCVI guidance on Monday increased the number of people who are eligible for a booster vaccination. If memory serves me right, an additional 1.3 million individuals immediately became eligible. Colleagues will understand that we cannot vaccinate 1.3 million people in one day, so we have to increase capacity to move through that as efficiently as possible. Work is under way to ensure that we satisfy the understandable demand that there will be in the community.

Prior to the new JCVI guidance, we were confident that all eligible individuals would be able to secure their booster vaccination before the turn of the year. We are confident that, with the new guidance in place, we will be able to reach that point by the end of January. There will be a period during which people will have to wait some weeks to secure their booster jag, but they will certainly get it earlier than would have been the case in other circumstances, such as if they had to wait 24 weeks after their second vaccination.

I will bring in Professor Leitch on part of that question, because we will get into the assessment of clinical risk. I will explain the thinking behind the programme.

This year, we took a decision to vaccinate more people than ever before for flu, and we had a commitment to administer the booster jags for a range of population groups. Our judgment was that the most effective and efficient way of doing that was to combine, as far as possible, the flu and Covid booster vaccination programmes to ensure that we were using resources wisely and calling in people when they could get two doses together. I had my flu and booster jags on Sunday, in a very efficient programme in Blairgowrie town hall.

The programme is designed to enable us to make as much progress as possible, but there will be some people who will get a flu jag slightly later in the year than they would have done under a stand-alone programme. Professor Leitch can set out the clinical issues around that.

We are trying to maximise the protection that is available to individuals and within society by having as efficient a programme as we can. I accept that some individuals might get a flu vaccination slightly later than they would ordinarily have received it.

We are awaiting advice on that point from the JCVI, which has been exploring the issue—

No, convener—I am satisfied with what I have said.

It is but, to go back to my two key words—proportionate and precautionary—it is also a recognition that, in the light of omicron, it is necessary to take the precautionary stance of moving to an earlier time for the booster jag. That strikes me as a rational decision for the JCVI to arrive at.

Perhaps Professor Leitch will want to add something.

I think that members of Parliament have wrestled with that question for a considerable time. Indeed, Mr Fraser and a number of other members have been pressing the Government to take that step for some time.

The Government wanted to have a scheme in place that would help to boost vaccine take-up, which is why we resisted that move to begin with—it does not suit the purpose of our scheme. For completeness, however, I put on the record that, at the same time, we indicated the risk that Mr Fraser puts to me.

There is a risk here. I cannot deny that. However, the approach is part of the culture that we have to take forward if we are serious as a society about resisting the spread of the virus. We need to test ourselves and follow what the one or two red lines tell us when the test is complete. I encourage members of the public to take the process deadly seriously, and I know that many are doing so. There is very high demand for lateral flow tests, thankfully.

I return to the questions that the convener put to me at the beginning about how seriously people are taking the testing approach. Testing is a very important tool in stopping the circulation of the virus, and it would not be right for somebody to report a test result that was inaccurate. If Mr Fairlie will forgive me, I am not sure that it is for me to decide what is fraudulent and what is not, but that would not be the right thing to do, because it would undermine the purpose of the scheme and the taking of the test. I encourage members of the public to test and to report the findings accurately.