Coronavirus (COVID-19) Scotland's Strategic Framework update – February 2022: evidence paper

8. Data and Analysis

8.1 Introduction

Scottish Government decision making through the pandemic has been based on a range of factors including scientific evidence, modelling, behavioural research, statistics and analysis. Much of this has necessarily been ‘new’ and was delivered at pace with partners, including Public Health Scotland and UKHSA, to rapidly develop new data collections and reporting over the course of the pandemic.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to transparency and has sought to develop and publish appropriate information about COVID-19 as it has become available. This has included rapid data and intelligence to support and inform decision making such as case numbers, hospital and ICU occupancy, deaths, vaccinations, and other COVID-19 related data covering schools, care homes and NHS absences. Key sources of information have included reporting of headline daily data on the SG Coronavirus web pages, a weekly State of the Epidemic Paper, Research Findings and sharing the latest ONS Infection Survey results. Public Health Scotland has also developed significant new and interactive reporting on the PHS Daily Dashboard, Education Surveillance Dashboard and continued to develop the content of its PHS weekly COVID-19 statistical report.

To provide public information on the four harms approach the 4 harms dashboard and two key papers were published^{[337],[338],[339]}.

It is now time to consider what evidence, data and analysis will be required going forward. Work is underway with Public Health Scotland and other partners to review the content and frequency of all Scottish Government current data reporting to identify what is required to support resilience and recovery in the future. This will involve prioritising the modelling, data and analysis that is essential to support the future monitoring and surveillance of COVID-19. We also need to establish the data and evidence required to monitor the wider harms of COVID-19 in the future. A data and reporting strategy will be published in Spring to support implementation of the Strategic Framework following consultation with users and the public are consulted on any planned changes.

8.2 Signals and indicators

Maintaining a robust evidence base for the management of future threats is an essential part of planning for the future to support evidence informed decision making. Developing an appropriate set of indicators to monitor developments suitable to this stage of the pandemic is crucial. As outlined in 8.1 above a data strategy will be published in Spring 2022 setting out what data will be collected and published which will set out the approach to monitoring societal and economic issues alongside health issues.

Table 1: outlines range of data and indicators that are being considered to monitor the pandemic.

Direct COVID-19 Harms

• COVID-19 prevalence: estimates of positivity in the community from the ONS COVID-19 Infection Survey for example, prevalence estimates from waste-water analysis, COVID-19 confirmed cases including by age group / within care homes.
• Hospitalisation: COVID-19 related hospital and ICU occupancy and admissions, forecasts of hospital and ICU occupancy
• Infection Fatality Rates
• COVID-19 related deaths
• Vaccination: levels of vaccination in the population, and by demographics

Other Health Harms

• Excess mortality (NRS)
• Long COVID estimates (ONS)
• People avoiding GPs (SG polling)
• A&E attendances
• Emergency and Elective admissions
• Delayed discharges from hospital

Societal impacts

• Trust in Government
• Education: % of school openings with pupils not in school because of COVID-19 reasons
• Financial stress: Crisis grant applications
• Finance/work: Perceived threat to job and opportunities for quality work.
• Loneliness and isolation: Self-reported loneliness in the last week.
• Personal wellbeing, anxiety and happiness
• Cultural and leisure participation
• Public services: Accessibility and use of public services, and public transport

Economic impacts

• Monthly GDP, overall and by sector, compared to pre-pandemic levels.
• Weekly visits to recreation and retail, compared to pre-pandemic levels.
• Weekly visits to workplaces, compared to pre-pandemic levels.
• Business turnover in previous two weeks, relative to normal, by sector.
• Difficulty in filling staff vacancies in the last month compared to normal, by sector.
• Weekly economic uncertainty index (a forward looking indicator)

The process of developing the data strategy will involve detailed consideration of these suggested indicators to arrive at a final agreed set for publication.

8.3 COVID-19 Recovery Learning and Evaluation

Learning from the experiences of the last two years is an important part of developing future strategy and approaches to monitoring. As part of the implementation of the COVID-19 Recovery Strategy, a Learning and Evaluation Group has been established to support robust organisational learning from the Scottish Government’s approach to the pandemic. This is looking retrospectively to bring together evidence from research, evaluation and routine data on studies conducted during the pandemic to better understand how particular groups and organisations have been affected and also how public services have responded and adapted, with a particular focus on social and economic aspects. It will also look ahead to deliver and oversee a coherent and pragmatic programme of evaluation and learning to address key COVID-19 evaluation questions. The group is chaired by Professor Linda Bauld, interim Chief Social Policy Adviser, and is made up of academics, representatives from a range of organisations and Scottish government officials and advisers and will continue to meet over the next two years.

8.4 Summary

Data, research and analysis has played a central role in tackling the pandemic. This will not change but the precise nature of the data required to be collected, monitored and published will change over time as the pandemic itself changes. The need to focus on the full range of harms remains essential as does the importance of learning from experiences to date.