A cross-Border cluster of covid-19 cases has been detected in Dumfries and Galloway.
On Wednesday morning, the local NHS board confirmed nine new coronavirus cases around Gretna and Annan.
Speaking at the Scottish Government’s daily coronavirus briefing, the national clinical director Prof Jason Leitch described it as a "complex but small cluster".
He stressed that the last positive cases in the Dumfries and Galloway health board area had come on June 22.
He also confirmed that two people who work at RAF Lossiemouth in Moray have tested positive for the presence of coronavirus antibodies, suggesting that they have previously been infected.
The two individuals are self-isolating and contact tracing is ongoing, he added.
Leitch said: "A number of cases have been identified around Gretna and Annan, and it's worth noting that the last positive case in Dumfries and Galloway Health Board was on the 22nd of June.
"This is a complex but small cluster captured in different testing areas; in a hospital testing site, in a mobile testing unit and in a drive-through testing unit."
Leitch added: "We understand this cluster is single figures and it is cross-border.
"That adds a complexity because some of the testing will have been done in England and some of the testing will have been done in Scotland.
"The teams have brought that together and discussed it at that assessment group yesterday and decided these cases are connected.
"So, therefore, they are going to put in place a cross-border incident management team which is exactly what Health Protection Scotland are meant to do with Public Health England, and make sure that we are managing everything we can around the family, the workplaces and everything else.
"Contact tracing has already begun, contact tracing begins from the moment the positive test is given to an individual, whether that's in Moray or in Dumfries and Galloway."
Leitch said: "Clusters are easier to deal with than sustained community transmission, so we can use precision public health measures, health protection teams, to go to and manage that individual cluster and control it.
"That's a much easier process than having to suggest to the Cabinet Secretary and the First Minister that 'we've got community transmission again, could you please think about locking down either an area or the whole country?'."
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said that the public should "take some assurance" from the news that clusters of coronavirus outbreaks have been detected.
She said: "Although everything associated with this virus is concerning and causes people anxiety - and I include myself in that - I do think people should also take some assurance from what Jason has just been outlining, because that shows that these systems are in place, and these systems are kicking in when they need to."
Details of the outbreak came as the Tory Government criticised Sturgeon for considering imposing restrictions on the Scottish Border to help prevent new outbreaks of coronavirus.
The First Minister has said she could impose quarantine measures on people entering Scotland from the rest of the UK “if it is required from a public health perspective”.
Jack said this was "reckless talk".
He told MPs this morning: “This talk of quarantining people from other parts of the United Kingdom – it’s disappointing, it’s divisive, it’s not the language we should be hearing from our First Minister because it undermines the joint efforts that we’ve had in tackling Covid-19 and it’s bad for business. It’s especially bad for the tourism business.”
Asked about the Secretary of State's comments during the briefing, Sturgeon said: "I would not be doing my job properly if I ruled things out that as we see from countries around the world are being used selectively in appropriate circumstances to try to contain a virus."
She added: If I'm looking at the data and the evidence and I'm seeing that there's a risk to Scotland of infection coming in from other parts of the UK and I think that there needs to be measures taken to contain that, then I will discuss that with other administrations as appropriate - although the decisions if it is about protecting Scotland would be for the Scottish Government to take."
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