Nicola Sturgeon 'relaunches' Covid FACTS campaign amid weak public understanding of acronym

Nicola Sturgeon has decided to "relaunch" her flagship FACTS Covid public health campaign amid low public understanding of what the acronym stands for.

The Scottish Government has written to MSPs stating the campaign has been rebooted in the run-up to Christmas, with new icons for each of the five letters.

Updating them about a "relaunch of the new FACTS campaign", the email said it would run until Dec 20 and include adverts on TV, press, radio and social media.

The email asked MSPs to share the campaign in their Facebook and Twitter posts - with the hashtag WeAreScotland - in an attempt to increase the campaign's reach and profile.

The move emerged after Ms Sturgeon earlier this week insisted that the Scottish Government's polling showed "good understanding" of the FACTS key messages.

However, this was undermined by official research published a fortnight ago showing a majority of Scots could not identify the safety message attached to each letter.

Fewer than two-thirds (61 per cent) knew that F stands for “face coverings” and barely a third (35 per cent) were aware that A means to “avoid crowded places”.

A similarly low proportion (37 per cent) knew that C stands for “clean hands” and only 41 per cent of participants correctly identified that T is for “two metres distancing”.

Only four out of 10 correctly responded to the public attitudes research, conducted in September, that S stood for for “self-isolate”.

Asked whether they had seen or heard the campaign, fewer than half (46 per cent) could "spontaneously" name FACTS despite Ms Sturgeon explaining it repeatedly during her daily televised briefings.

However, 88 per cent said they had heard of it when prompted by the interviewer.

The UK Government is also running its "Hands Face Space" campaign in Scotland, with Whitehall insiders believing this is simpler to understand than an acronym.

Donald Cameron, the Scottish Tories' Shadow Health Secretary, said: "It is clear that the FACTS campaign has confused many people across Scotland, and the need to relaunch it today is an admission that its muddled messaging has failed.

“The SNP must urgently look at other ways to communicate vital public health information to the public, a significant proportion of whom have failed to understand FACTS.”

The Scottish Government email to MSPs stated: "We wanted to update you with a relaunch of the new FACTS campaign. This new campaign looks to remind people of the five key behaviours that FACTS stand for, and how this should be part of our everyday lives to keep us all safe."

Questioned on Tuesday about the research showing "weak" public understanding of FACTS, Ms Sturgeon insisted this was not correct and said a "very good" new TV advert had been launched in recent days. The relaunch started on Nov 27.

She added: "We keep all those things under review so that the public understanding is as wide and as good as possible not just of what we ask people to do but of why we ask it and the benefits that it brings to them and others."

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "We are reinforcing the importance of the FACTS campaign, and the second phase will build on earlier success and develop further understanding of each required behaviour."