Inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson KC asks Freeman about how she felt after receiving warnings about how serious the Covid situation could become.

Freeman says: "I had a growing feeling of trepidation about what we were about to have to deal with, all through that month of January."

She says her colleague Dr Calderwood shared these feelings: "Dr Calderwood was increasingly clear with me and her colleagues in the health directorate about just how serious this could end up being and to quickly disabuse ourselves of any notion this might be a repeat of H1N1."

Image source, UK Covid inquiry

Freeman recalls she and her colleagues were dealing with wide-ranging advice from lots of experts about matters like the reproduction or R number (which rated the ability of the virus to spread).

"The way I heard it" she says, "was that this is very serious."

Further recalling those exchanges at the start of the pandemic, Freeman says Scotland's then-Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Calderwood was keeping open the possibility that Covid could progress from an epidemic by mild cases to a pandemic - as it indeed did.

Freeman says at the time she thought: "Let's find out, let's keep finding out till we know."

The inquiry is shown an email between Prof Mark Woolhouse to then-Chief Medical Officer Dr Catherine Calderwood. (Woolhouse was a member of the Scottish Government COVID-19 Advisory Group and gave his own evidence last week.)

In the email, Prof Woolhouse voices his concerns that what was then merely a virus outbreak in Wuhan, China, had the potential to become a pandemic affecting Scotland. He refers to the H1N1 swine flu pandemic in 2009-10.

Freeman says the reference to H1N1 resonated with then-First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

Freeman is outlining the "cast list" with whom she worked in St Andrews House seven days a week during early stages of the pandemic.

They include the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland Prof Sir Gregor Smith and the National Clinical Director Jason Leitch. They were there most days, she says.

Image source, UK Covid inquiry

Jeane Freeman says she believed the obligation to officially record conversations was not just limited to decisions taken - it would also include the context of the discussion.

Previous witnesses have told the inquiry they only recorded salient points.

"You had to put it into the system to ensure that action would then be taken," she elucidates.

Jamie Dawson KC - the inquiry lawyer - continues to ask about which of Freeman's conversations have been recorded.

Freeman says she had an arrangement with her private office that if she had a phone call with healthcare unions or ministers, she would tell them the outcome of the call to record this information.

She says: "Usually those calls were confirmatory of decisions that had already been reached or individuals were sharing with me concerns they might have."

Freeman is being asked about her WhatsApp messages. “I did not delete messages” she says. “It never occurred to me to do so.”

She is asked if she was aware of a Scottish government policy to delete WhatsApp messages.

She says she was not aware of such a policy.

Meanwhile, Jeane Freeman says the number of texts she exchanged with Nicola Sturgeon were in "very small number" as she and the then-first minister were in each other's company everyday and most of their business was conducted verbally.

The former Scottish health secretary says she could not find a way to retrieve the text messages, but they were very short and operational.

Freeman says that two key figures with whom she was in regular contact - National Clinical Director Prof Jason Leitch and Chief Medical Officer Prof Sir Gregor Smith - both had an auto-delete function on their phones, meaning the messages she received from them were not available on her phone when the inquiry began.

Image source, UK Covid inquiry

Jamie Dawson KC begins his questioning by looking at informal messaging and the retention of those communications.

He refers to a table which states Jeane Freeman had been part of a WhatsApp group for the UK's four health secretaries - in which no-one else was included.

Freeman explains she disclosed to the inquiry all of the messages she subsequently found.

She says she used a Scottish Parliament phone, rather than a Scottish government phone, so she could have only one mobile phone and let her retain the number she wished.

She also had a Scottish government tablet.

Freeman faces questions over care home deathspublished at 13:57 Greenwich Mean Time 29 January

13:57 GMT 29 January

Lisa Summers
BBC Scotland health correspondent

Jeane Freeman has already admitted moving patients from hospitals to care homes without the right precautions was a "mistake".

Between 1 March and 31 May 2020, almost 5,000 patients were discharged from Scottish hospitals to care homes - many were not tested. A University of Edinburgh report found that in the first wave of the pandemic, around 50% of Covid deaths were in care homes.

The inquiry has already heard that the guidance for care home staff was confusing and impossible to implement and that there was little personal protective equipment (PPE) available. It has also heard that some restrictions, such as not allowing family to visit, had devastating consequences.

Jeane Freeman is likely to be asked about her role in making these decisions, and whether more could have been done to protect residents of care homes.

Image source, UK Covid inquiry

Jeane Freeman is being sworn in as the UK Covid inquiry evidence session in Edinburgh resumes.

Freeman was Scottish health secretary until the Scottish Parliament election in May 2021, when she stood down as an MSP.

Politicising the pandemicpublished at 13:44 Greenwich Mean Time 29 January

13:44 GMT 29 January

Kirsten Campbell
BBC Scotland political correspondent

The SNP has been accused of seeking to politicise the pandemic. Now the UK government is facing similar questions.

The State of the Union paper from July 2020 seeks to change the public perceptions of the UK government’s Covid response in order to shore up the political union between the four nations of the United Kingdom. Remember, this was just 10 months before the Scottish Parliament elections.

The paper reveals that in Scotland at the time 27% of the people thought the UK government was putting the right measures in place, whereas 70% thought the Scottish government was doing the right thing.

This difference in public opinion may actually have more to do with the presentation of the policies, rather than the policies themselves,.

But in his evidence to the inquiry this morning, Michael Gove suggested it was because the Westminster government had "hidden its light under a bushel".

All Whitehall departments are urged to find instances where ministers have acted in the best interests of all four nations, and Mr Gove pointed to the vaccine programme, furlough and the sourcing of PPE as good examples.

Here's a look back at what Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove told the UK Covid inquiry this morning.

• Gove was questioned on the ways in which the UK and Scottish governments diverged in their decision-making early in the pandemic
• He alleged that certain calls were made at Holyrood to advance a "political agenda", arguing that it was the ultimate mission of the SNP to "destroy the United Kingdom"
• Gove argued that then-First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had been guilty of "jumping of the gun" by announcing a ban on mass gatherings in Scotland in March 2020 following confidential talks on the subject. This was "unwise" and led to issues with No 10 trusting Sturgeon, he said
• But he denied that there was a dysfunctional relationship between the two governments, and refuted suggestions that officials in Westminster had been "playing politics" themselves
• The inquiry does not exist to find anyone innocent or guilty; the aim is to learn lessons
• This is the third and final week of its hearings in Edinburgh
• After lunch, we're due to hear from Jeane Freeman - who was Scottish health secretary for the first year or so of the pandemic

You can read more from Michael Gove here.

Michael Gove's evidence comes to a close, following a couple of questions from Claire Mitchell KC for Scottish Covid Bereaved.

Inquiry chair Baroness Heather Hallett says proceedings will resume at 13:45. At that point, we're due to hear from Jeane Freeman, who was Scottish health secretary until May 2021.

Gove further insists that UK government did not use the pandemic response in a political way to promote the strength of the union.

“To be passive in the face of an attempt to break up the UK is not being even handed, it is quitting the field” he adds.

Scottish and English people have the same values, he reiterates, and the existence of the United Kingdom and its institutions has "enabled us to deal effectively with the pandemic".

Focus now turns to a paper in which Michael Gove is seen highlighting the low trust in the UK government pandemic response, compared to the trust seen in the response by other devolved nations.

Dawson asks if Westminster sought to use the pandemic to strengthen the case for the union.

Gove says he wanted to point out the effectiveness of the UK in responding to Covid. He says he wanted the UK to stop "hiding its light under a bushel".

Image source, UK Covid inquiry

Gove says it is often asserted that people in Scotland have different values than people in the rest of the UK.

He says: "It seems to be that the SNP and their supporters seem to suggest that the national community in Scotland are different - more compassionate, more tolerant - than people in England."

But in his experience, that is "nationalist myth-making" and "divisive nonsense", he says.

The Scottish government's divergence from the UK government in pursuit of "zero Covid" was "misconceived" says Gove. “You couldn’t have an elimination strategy,” he explains.

He says he spoke to Sturgeon about what she hoped to achieve by using the word "elimination." At that stage, without a vaccine, it wasn't possible, he says.