4. I thank the First Minister for advance sight of her statement. We are facing months more under the thumb of the virus. The First Minister says that test and protect is working well. However, when I asked Professor Linda Bauld in the COVID-19 Committee yesterday about the system, she warned that the test part is not fully working and is causing concern. She said that, if we cannot get rapid testing, we really are in trouble. She also said that quarantine is not being followed. Only one in four people says that they fully comply. Does the First Minister really think that what she is doing on testing and quarantining is enough?

No, I do not think that any of the things that any of us is doing right now is necessarily enough. That is why we continue to support, expand and build the resilience of the systems.

I think that test and protect is working well, and I think that the evidence supports that. The test part, as I mentioned in detail when responding to Ruth Davidson, is part of a networked United Kingdom system. There are aspects of that system that require us to co-operate with the UK Government, to ensure that any challenges are overcome and any concerns are addressed.

I have a concern—I do not want to overstate this—that rising demand in other parts of the UK could have an impact on the capacity or turnaround times in Scotland, but we will continue to work through those issues. We are all trying to achieve the same things, and we will continue to work constructively with other Governments across the UK to expand testing capacity and resilience and to use new technology that allows testing to be done in a different way and much more rapidly. In Scotland, we have already procured tests that are done much more quickly at the point of care. Those things are important on an on-going basis.

The protect part of test and protect is probably working even better, given the numbers that are published. Again, however, we are not complacent about those. This is where Scotland is perhaps doing a bit better than some other parts of the UK. We are seeing well over 90 per cent of contacts and well over 90 per cent of index cases traced.

On quarantine, I accept the challenges for the travelling public, airports and airlines, and the challenge for any system to be absolutely watertight and foolproof. Therefore, we must look at how we can tighten things up and at alternative ways of doing things, which we continue to do.

None of this is straightforward and none of this is easy, but it is all-important that we try to keep the virus under control.

What I would say—this relates back to Patrick Harvie’s comment—is that we should be very vigilant about the situation that we are in right now. We should be very cautious and hear the warning sounds very clearly. However, we should also reflect on the progress that we have made since the earlier part of the year. We are in a stronger position. I hope that means that, if we all—the Government especially—do the right things and if the public all—as they have done so well—get behind the public health advice, we will not have to accept the inevitability of what might otherwise happen. We can all have an impact in keeping it under control.

I urge the First Minister to read the full Official Report of yesterday’s meeting of the COVID-19 Committee. Professor Bauld was very concerned about the test element of the test and protect strategy and, in particular, our capacity for and utilisation of testing. She was also very concerned about the quarantine aspect. As we have seen from this week’s figures, more than 800 people have been missed by the quarantine spot checks. When one person in four is not complying with the rules, that is a real concern.

We are turning a dark corner in people’s hopes and expectations. In their minds, we were preparing for recovery and for the elimination of the virus, but now we are being taken backwards. I was therefore most concerned by what Professor Bauld also said yesterday when she warned about the prospect of there being social unrest. Will the First Minister say what plans she has on that front and how she proposes to avoid such unrest happening?

The First Minister:

Before I respond to Willie Rennie’s comments, I say that all of us should, as elected politicians, see it as part of our duty to avoid social unrest and to take very seriously our responsibility to explain such matters to the public and to encourage them to do the right things. I think that all members from across the chamber will be doing so.

I am not blind to the challenges on the issues of testing and quarantine—I take such matters very seriously. Because of the way in which the test and protect system is structured, we require to work with the UK Government on the test part. That sometimes makes those challenges more difficult, but it is nevertheless the right thing to do in order to ensure that we have that system operating across the whole of the UK.

Although I accept the limitations of the quarantine system and the desirability of having alternative approaches to it, one point that is not fully understood is that every single person who comes into the country and who is required to quarantine—100 per cent of them—will be contacted by email. The phone call follow-up is the sample bit of that process. There is therefore contact with every one of those people. However, we do have to work hard to make the systems that we have in place to mitigate the virus all the more effective.

I stress that elimination is—and must continue to be—our objective. It will not happen at a fixed point in time. We have always said that we will go backwards and forwards as we come out of lockdown. Elimination is not the same as eradication, which will happen only with a vaccine.

However, the reason that we are being cautious again today is that we must continue to bear down on the rates of infection. If we are to achieve elimination, we must drive those rates as low as possible and must not accept that it is okay to have a certain level of the virus circulating. Sometimes, the rate will be higher than at other times, but the objective of driving it as low as possible remains absolutely essential.

I will read the full Official Report of Professor Linda Bauld’s evidence, since it has been mentioned a couple of times. As I have said before, I have a huge amount of respect for her.

However, the point is that, as we go further through the pandemic, it becomes harder for the public—and for all of us—to follow all the advice. Every single one of us will identify with that feeling. Therefore the duty on all of us as politicians—and, I accept, principally on me—is to explain as clearly as possible why we are asking people to do certain things and what the reasons for those things are.

We must also explain why, where necessary, we have enforcement measures in place so that people who flagrantly breach the law—for example, someone who holds a house party for several hundred people—experience the consequences of that. It is important to make people understand that we are not putting those restrictions on them for no reason; it is for good reason.

Inevitably, as we get further into the pandemic, the messages will become more complex and people will become more fatigued, which is why it is more important than ever that we continue patiently and fully to explain why all those measures remain vital.

The Presiding Officer:

I remind members that I will take all supplementary questions after question 7.