When and where?

Saturday, 20th May, 3.30 pm, outside the Scottish Parliament (meet between the artificial ponds and the Visitors’ entrance)

What will we be doing and what should you bring?

This is an authorised protest with banners and placards, and an opportunity for anyone wishing to speak to do so. Bring yourself, any friends and, if you have the time for it, a placard with your own message to the Scottish government. We ask people to wear a mask during the protest, and we will have FFP2 masks available for anyone who needs one.

Why?

The Scottish Government has written to all healthcare and social care providers to advise them that, from 16^th May:

1. Care home staff should no longer be allowed to wear a mask if they choose to (unless they get a personal clinical risk assessment, which very few will be able to get). To our knowledge, this makes Scotland the first country to actually ban the use of masks in any setting!
2. Masks are no longer recommended and will no longer be supplied to staff healthcare settings (except where they would have been used pre-Covid or based on a personal clinical risk assessment).

This decision infringes on employees right to protect their own health and wellbeing within the workplace. It puts the health and welfare of both staff and patients at increased risk from Covid and other airborne viruses.

In Scotland COVID-19 is still killing around 60 people each week (around 600 in the UK). It has resulted in nearly 2 million people (3%) of the UK population now living with Long COVID. A figure which is sadly likely to increase as according to the World Health Organisation, one in ten infections lead to Long COVID or other post-COVID conditions.