Test and Protect: equality and Fairer Scotland Duty impact assessment

3. Who will it affect?

The primary focus of the Test and Protect strategy must be on achieving the public health objective of reducing community transmission of Covid-19 in order to save lives. Limiting the spread of Covid-19 is designed to positively affect the whole population, but may particularly positively affect the health of those people who are more severely affected by the disease and who are at higher risk of severe illness, including older people and those with underlying health conditions.^[3] However, in doing so we have endeavoured to ensure that any negative impacts on people with one or more of the protected characteristics or who face socio-economic disadvantage have been central to thinking around the three pillars of the Test and Protect strategy.

Anyone could become infected with coronavirus or asked to isolate because they live with, or have been in close contact with, someone who has tested positive. We recognise though that some people or communities are at higher risk exposure to the virus or at greater risk of the harms caused by Covid-19. This impact assessment summaries our consideration of these impacts and the areas where further mitigating actions could or has been taken to minimise any negative impacts or barriers to access to Test and Protect.

The Covid-19 dashboard is updated daily with the latest statistics on the latest cases broken down by age group, sex and deprivation quintile.^[4] Please note that these are the cumulative positive cases since the pandemic began, and before the inception of Test and Protect.

The cumulative number of positive cases as at 10 March shows that:

• There have been more positive cases in women than men.
• There have been more positive cases in those aged 25-44 than any other age group.
• By deprivation quintile, the highest number of cases have been in our most deprived communities (SIMD1).