Scot Gov Health Secretary Jeane Freeman confirms she will follow JCVI recommendation for phase two of the vaccine programme - eg, downwards by age, and no priority for key workers like teachers/police
Health Sec Jeane Freeman says target to finish groups 1-9 (down to over 50s) is April 15.

Age 40-49 will follow after that, as per JCVI recommendations
Freeman: "I understand why some of our professions and sectoral groups may be disappointed with the JCVI advice but they are crystal clear about where the greatest risk factor lies, and it doesn't lie on the basis of where you work, but on age..(and) underlying health conditions"
.@jasonleitch says the "question" is whether you deprioritise a 49-year-old in order to vaccinate it a 20 year old who happens to be a in a profession like teaching or police. He says the JCVI says no.

He adds: “Boffins have decided and we’ve decided to accept their advice”
My line is crackly but I'm sure national clinical director @jasonleitch said "boffins" ...
Asked about whether Scottish ministers could go against JCVI advice and prioritise teachers/police, Health Secretary Jeane Freeman says that since devolution "no government in Scotland has gone against the advice of the JCVI"

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More from @ChrisMusson

1 Mar
We report today on a senior Scot Gov public health official using an arguably misleading & inaccurate deaths stat in Friday's Scot Gov televised Covid briefing, in order for the gov to back up its controversial argument it nearly eliminated Covid in summer thescottishsun.co.uk/news/scottish-…
In short, national clinical director Prof Jason Leitch suggested there were no Covid-related deaths between July 17 & Aug 18. There were in fact 24

Even if you examine his claim with a caveat he gave in response to one of two Qs on the issue, there was 1.

More detail follows
Prof Jason Leitch was responding to Edinburgh Uni epidemiologist Prof Mark Woolhouse's claims on Thurs that Scotland did not get close to elimination. Woolhouse's comments were widely reported, eg: thescottishsun.co.uk/news/6737272/c…
Read 15 tweets
26 Feb
Scotland's national clinical director @jasonleitch said at Covid briefing today that he disagreed with Edinburgh University epidemiologist Professor Mark Woolhouse, who cast doubt yesterday on Scot Gov claims that Scotland nearly eliminated the virus last summer
.@jasonleitch: “I disagree with Mark - you may not be surprised to hear that - but that’s healthy. That’s a good thing in the scientific advisory community. Some of the other members of our advisory group also disagree with Mark, again - healthy, that’s good."
Prof Leitch: “We rarely play those scientific debates out live at parliamentary committees and live on TV and that’s the nature of the pandemic.”
Read 8 tweets
25 Feb
Edinburgh Uni's Prof Mark Woolhouse (Scot Gov adviser) tells Holyrood's Covid committee: “Scotland was not close to elimination at any stage during this epidemic.”

Other experts (eg Prof Devi Sridhar) and Nicola Sturgeon have said that Scotland was close to elimination in summer
Prof Woolhouse, chair of infectious disease epidemiology at Edinburgh University, says there were low numbers of "reported" cases during the summer in Scotland, but modelling using a method that has been “very well validated since” show elimination was not close
Prof Woolhouse casts doubt on whether an elimination strategy in Scotland (seemingly favoured by Scot Gov) could work. He says there is "no route" for Scotland to get to where New Zealand (which has adopted a successful elimination strategy) is now
Read 11 tweets
23 Feb
The Scottish Parliament is removing Alex Salmond's evidence to its inquiry into the unlawful gov investigation into him, after concerns were raised by Scotland's prosecution service, the Crown Office. It will be republished - redacted - later, the parliament says
Scot Parl: “Following representations from the Crown Office on Monday evening, the SPCB agreed collectively this morning that it will remove the Alex Salmond submission on the Ministerial Code from its website with immediate effect and republish it later today in a redacted form"
The SPCB is the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, which is the cross-party body responsible for the administration of parliament.

You have to wonder how - given wide debate around this issue - Scot Parl managed to publish a submission that the Crown had grave concerns about
Read 4 tweets
22 Feb
Nicola Sturgeon is pursuing an elimination strategy - also known as Zero Covid.

So what does this approach mean for the UK as a whole, for the Scotland-England border, etc?
Prof @LindaBauld says changes announced by the PM are “consistent with pursuing a suppression rather than an elimination strategy in England”. “This is different from the approach previously set out by the Scottish Government which focuses as much as possible on elimination"
Prof Bauld adds: "The framing is different. The extent to which the policies are different will become clearer when we hear more about the Scottish Government’s plans going forward.”
Read 4 tweets
13 Jan
EXCL: Scotland's Health Secretary Jeane Freeman criticised for revealing UK vaccine storage location in parliament, prompting security concerns thescottishsun.co.uk/news/scottish-…
Odd sequence of events tonight in relation to this story. The location was repeated by officials at a background briefing for media this afternoon. After the briefing, Scot Gov told journalists at 5.30pm NOT to report the location due to security fears
The problem is, Jeane Freeman mentioned it in parliament this morning.

So we asked Scot Gov about this by email at 5.51pm and in a call at 6.38pm, where we also told them of UK Gov concerns about the location being spoken about by Ms Freeman in parliament.
Read 4 tweets

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