Ever since this pandemic started the two questions that have continually remained unanswered are, how many people have had the coronavirus and when are hospitals going to start testing the public for this virus?

Well, on Sunday the 17th of May the NHS announced that a tracing and testing system would commence over three hospitals, NHS Fife, NHS Lanarkshire, and NHS Highland, to prevent the spreading of this virus. Since the start of this pandemic governments have been trying to come up with a system to help slow down this virus and make sure there is no second wave however, governments have had over 8,000 applications for 2,000 jobs as contact tracers, and yet not one of these tracers have been hired until now. Just a few days ago, the Scottish government decided that they wanted to go with a system where they contact people who have caught the virus by a telephone call, rather than using an app which is being trialled in parts of the UK. Although, if this app is more effective, the Scottish Government have said they would reconsider their choice and maybe use a new app, tracer.

Scottish Labour have questioned the Health Secretary about why there still hasn’t been a contact tracer hired, however Jeanne Freeman (the Health Secretary) replied saying that the first course of action would be recruiting existing NHS staff. This is because they are used to that type of environment and the next step would be to reach out to the public, recruiting employees to the NHS once disclosure checks had been done and completed.

Since launching this app in parts of the UK more than 55,000 people have downloaded it and, if this app is more promising and effective than the system the Scottish Government are putting in place, Jeanne Freeman has stated that Scotland may switch. To benefit public health teams, they could easily identify outbreaks in areas and use this app to reduce movement of people and slow this virus, helping staff collect and record valuable information and data that is proving harder to get at the moment.

Some people believe that Scotland has been to slow to hire a contact tracer, however one of the reasons is because nobody knows how reliable and trustworthy the results will be from one of the 8,000 applicants. The Scottish Government are still deciding on which approach will be the most effective and reliable for the people of Scotland.

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