RUSHES: Coronavirus: Nicola Sturgeon press conference June 4th

Coronavirus: Nicola Sturgeon press conference June 4th; SCOTLAND: Edinburgh: St Andrew's House: INT Nicola Sturgeon MSP (First Minister of Scotland) statement SOT. (Part 2 of 3) - One of the areas where we have been doing that already, is in relation to personal and protective equipment, or PPE – in Scotland. We are publishing a report today that summarises how we are securing PPE for health and care workers in Scotland – it also sets out the work we are doing to develop a manufacturing chain for that equipment. To demonstrate the scale of some of this work, it’s maybe worth looking at an item such as fluid resistant surgical masks. Those are masks which help to prevent blood, bodily fluids and secretions from one person – including water droplets from coughs – coming into contact with the mouth or nose of the person wearing the mask. Prior to Covid-19, National Services Scotland would provide around 57,000 of those masks to our health and care sector each week. Now, instead of needing 57,000 masks a week, we need 4 ½ million. That is an 80-fold increase. To meet that demand, we are importing equipment from overseas. 100 million fluid resistant masks have been imported from China, and a further 60 million are on order. But we are also working with suppliers in Scotland to establish domestic supply chains. Alpha Solway, a firm based in south-west Scotland which specialises in protective clothing, is due to start producing masks in August. They have taken on 30 new staff to do so, and they are using raw material sourced from Don & Low in Forfar. As a result, we hope that in due course, manufacturers in Scotland will be able – not just to meet demand for these masks here in Scotland – but also provide them to other parts of the UK or to other countries in Europe. There is a similar story in relation to other items of equipment. We are creating supply chains for non-sterile gowns and FFP3 masks. In addition, Berry BPI are planning to m...