Test and protect system to begin this week
Anyone who has symptoms of coronavirus will be tested and their contacts traced and told to isolate for 14 days.
Last updated 26th May 2020
Nicola Sturgeon says Scotland's Test and Protect contact-tracing scheme will come into effect from Thursday, the day before its expected she will decide to begin lifting some of the country's lockdown restrictions.
From that date, anyone who has symptoms of coronavirus will be tested and their contacts traced and told to isolate for 14 days.
Ms Sturgeon said: "The aim of Test and Protect is to quickly identify cases of the virus and then act to break the chains of transmission.''
She described the new system as being an extremely important tool for us in the months ahead''.
"It will help us suppress the virus as we slowly ease lockdown restrictions.''
Public health software, already used to trace the contacts of those with other infectious diseases, has also been scaled up, Ms Sturgeon said.
This has now been trialled in Fife, Lanarkshire and the Highlands, and will be up and running in all health board areas by Thursday.
The Scottish Government had previously said testing capacity of over 15,000 tests a day would be needed for the new scheme to come into effect, and had set the target of having 2,000 contact tracers in place for the start of June.
Nicola Sturgeon said that testing capacity had been met, with NHS labs and others involved.
The First Minister said while the current estimate was only 700 tracers would be needed at first, she said by the end of this month there would be "a pool of around 2,000 to draw on if necessary''.
She said: "This is a system that will operate at a scale not seen before in Scotland.
"We have of course had testing and contact tracing before, but we are substantially increasing the scale.
"Over the first couple of weeks it will need to bed down but introducing it at the same time as we take the first very cautious steps out of lockdown gives us the opportunity to address any operational issues ahead of a potentially more substantial easing of restrictions at the next review date in three weeks.''
As part of Test and Protect, Nicola Sturgeon said a new digital platform was being set up, where people who have tested positive for Covid-19 can enter details of their contacts online.
The First Minister said: "Just like lockdown itself really, this is something that will only have the desired effect if we all do what is required.
"It cannot be seen as optional.''
A public awareness campaign on the new initiative will launch later this week, with information also to be sent out to every home in the country in June.
Ms Sturgeon stressed when supplying information, people's privacy would be respected at all times''.
The First Minister told Scots: "The information you provide will be held securely in the NHS, and will be used only for the purposes of tracing your contacts.
"Let me be very clear, it will not be used by the Scottish Government, indeed we won't have access to the information. All of the work of identifying and tracing contacts will be done within Scotland's NHS.''
A total of 2,291 patients have died in Scotland after testing positive for coronavirus, up by 18 from 2,273 on Monday.
15,185 people have tested positive for the virus in Scotland, up by 29 from 15,156 the day before.
There are 1,200 people in hospital with confirmed or suspected Covid-19, a decrease of 69.
Of these, 36 were in intensive care, a fall of four.
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