Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-01146 on 1 July 2021. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

a) Assessment of the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic; The Scottish Government continues to monitor evidence on the Four Harms of COVID-19. These are the direct impact of COVID-19, other health impacts, societal impacts, and economic impacts.

We are using this information to inform decisions about COVID-19, including how we move through phases of the Coronavirus Route Map .

The virus will impact different groups of people in different ways, and our society will be affected in different ways over time. We’re carefully monitoring the data and regularly update new evidence to COVID-19 in Scotland (data.gov.scot) .

b) Assessment of the potential impact of COVID-19 vaccines on i) Menstrual Cycles; The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) have reviewed reports of menstrual disorders and unexpected vaginal bleeding suspected as adverse reactions to vaccination with the three COVID-19 vaccines currently being used in the UK: Pfizer/BioNTech, COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca and COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna.

These reports have also been reviewed by independent experts of the Commission on Human Medicines’ COVID-19 Vaccines Benefit Risk Expert Working Group and members of its Medicines for Women’s Health Expert Advisory Group.

A range of menstrual disorders has been reported as suspected adverse reactions after all three of these COVID-19 vaccines including heavy bleeding, delayed periods and unexpected vaginal bleeding. The number of reports of menstrual disorders and vaginal bleeding is low in relation to both the number of females who have received COVID-19 vaccines to date and the background rate of menstrual disorders generally.

ii) Menstrual Health; The current evidence does not suggest an increased risk of either menstrual disorders or unexpected vaginal bleeding following vaccination with the vaccines reviewed (Pfizer/BioNTech, COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca or COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna). The advice from the NHS remains that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks for most people. The MHRA will continue to closely monitor reports of suspected menstrual disorders and vaginal bleeding with COVID-19 vaccines.

Healthcare professionals are advised that anyone presenting with menstrual disorders and/or unexpected vaginal bleeding following COVID-19 vaccination should be treated according to clinical guidelines for these conditions, as usual.

The safety of all vaccines and medicines is monitored by the MHRA on a UK-wide basis. This includes reports from the Yellow Card Scheme which allows health professionals and patients across the UK to flag up suspected adverse reactions to any vaccine or medicine, as well as reports from worldwide use and on-going scientific evidence.

If a woman is concerned about changes to her period, she is advised to speak to her GP, especially if she experiences bleeding after menopause.

The Scottish Government publishes summaries of the latest key economic statistics and analysis on the Scottish Economy in its Monthly Economic Brief, available at:

https://www.gov.scot/collections/monthly-economic-briefs/

The Scottish Government’s last outlook for the economy was published in the December 2020 edition, before the furlough scheme was extended to September. However, the latest analysis from the Bank of England is for unemployment to peak at 5.5% in 2021 as the furlough scheme ends, broadly in range with the latest forecasts from other independent forecasters.

The next set of forecasts for the Scottish economy will be published by the Scottish Fiscal Commission on Thursday 26 August.

As announced in March, the recommendations from the Review will be taken forward by an Implementation Group. On the 18 June we announced that the Group will be Co-Chaired by Dennis Robertson and a clinical lead who will be confirmed shortly.

We also announced we are providing £5 million of funding to respond to the recommendations from the Review in this financial year. The majority of this funding will be provided to NHS Boards to support them in responding to the increase in eating disorder presentations due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This is Recommendation 1 from the Review. This funding is being provided from the £120 million Mental Health Recovery and Renewal Fund.

In addition, in response to Review recommendation 6 (Self-help Resources) and Recommendation 13 (Families and Carers), we are also providing funding to Beat, the UK’s Eating Disorder Charity, to provide a wide range of support options such as support to families and carers of those with an eating disorder; support for children, young people and adults who are currently waiting to be seen by services; and peer support services. We will shortly announce further details of this package of support.

a) The app does not identify anyone it is completely anonymous b) we do record the number of people that are advised by the app to self-isolate on a daily basis (see the “Contacts Advised to Self-Isolate” column in the following table).

The total number of downloads of the app are shown in the table attached in reply to S6W-00767 on 30 June 2021. The functionality to count the number of active daily app users has been improved since launch and currently indicates that there are around 980,000 active users each day.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Transvaginal Mesh Removal (Cost Reimbursement) (Scotland) Bill was introduced on 23 June 2021. It is published on the Scottish Parliament website .

To date we have spent £478,975.94 on the Protect Scotland - Proximity Tracing App and the Federated Server. The costs are broken down in the following table:

a) The app records the number of people that have “chosen to leave” (see the “Users that chose to leave” column in the table attached in reply to S6W-00767 on 30 June 2021).

b) Due to the anonymous nature of the app there is no way to know the number of people that have deleted the app.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

See “Monthly Service Support Costs” and “Service Support Costs to date” columns in the table attached to reply for S6W-00765 on 30 June 2021.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers