Humza Yousaf’s Covid fake news

The Scottish health secretary, Humza Yousaf, has been spreading scare stories about children going to hospital after catching Covid-19.

Yousaf claimed that 10 children up to the age of nine had been hospitalised last week ‘because of Covid’. He implied that rising numbers of children were being admitted to hospital. And he warned parents against travelling with their kids between areas with different Covid restrictions.

Of course, as has been clear since the start of the pandemic, when children get infected with Covid they tend to have milder symptoms or none at all. Very few have been hospitalised or have died.

Backing this up, leading paediatrician Steve Turner said there was no evidence of an increase in the hospitalisation rate among children. Yousaf’s figures included children who were hospitalised for things other than Covid, but who then tested positive.

Update: there is no sign of an increase in paediatric admissions due to COVID. Our emergency departments are very busy right across the UK, but not with COVID.

Statement 👇👇👇 pic.twitter.com/9mqrBa1ITB

— RCPCH (@RCPCHtweets) June 3, 2021

Yousaf eventually apologised, saying he didn’t mean to cause ‘undue alarm’. But his claims are consistent with his party’s attempts to inflate fears around Covid. In fact, SNP deputy leader John Swinney seemed to back Yousaf, suggesting that new ‘variants’ could become ‘acutely challenging’ for children, though he provided no evidence of this.

This shameless scaremongering has to stop.