Scottish Government COVID-19 Advisory Group minutes: 16 July 2020

Items and actions

1. Group members reviewed received an update on this week’s subgroup discussions. The Education and Children’s Issues subgroup produced advice on physical distance and school transport which have been published by the Scottish Government. The Public Health Threat Assessment Subgroup met for the first time agreeing the group’s remit and noting issues the group will consider in future meetings, such as co-circulation of influenza and covid-19.

2. Group members noted the low levels of community transmission in past weeks, with many health boards registering zero positive cases over several days. The group recognised the importance of continuing to adhere to government guidelines to maintain this.

3. Group members stressed that testing should be viewed as part of a public health intervention. Important that testing is used in conjunction with other public health measures that are helpful as part of overall public health response and the work of public health teams.

4. The group also discussed testing capacity and the need for future testing strategies to provide the ability to react to the changing needs and risks covid-19 will present to different groups at different times.

5. The advisory group considered the visiting in care homes. Group members recognised that care homes are operated by a large number of different providers so each care home will need to assess its specific risks but also the need for the flexibility to reintroduce restrictions if the risk from covid-19 were to increase.