THE Covid-19 pandemic is “accelerating in Scotland”, national clinical director Jason Leitch said yesterday. He was speaking after more than 700 new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in Scotland in 24 hours.
The daily total of 714 is the highest number of cases confirmed in a day since mass testing began, and 156 more than Friday’s figure.
The Scottish government said 11.5% of those newly tested in the past 24 hours had been positive for Covid-19.
The number of people in hospital with recently confirmed Covid-19 has also risen by 10 to 99.
No further deaths had been reported in the previous 24 hours, but one death was confirmed from the previous day, bringing the total to 2511.
Leitch said rises of “300 to 400 to 600” in the number of cases were now expected to be the trend, rather than smaller increases.
“Our pandemic in Scotland is presently accelerating – and we need to manage it,” he said.
Almost 3500 new cases have been confirmed in Scotland over the past seven days.
Glasgow is currently seeing the biggest rises, recording a weekly case rate of 162.5 per 100,000 people on Thursday.
The rate is more than twice that of North Lanarkshire, which has the second highest rate among local authorities. It is also the highest seen in Scotland since the start of the outbreak in March.
More caases are being detected because the number of tests being carried out is far higher than at the peak of Scotland’s outbreak in April, but the percentage of positive tests is also rising.
Leitch said restrictions on households mixing indoors, which were extended across the whole of Scotland on Tuesday, would take a while to have an affect. “It’s two, three weeks before you show any difference.”
“And we’ve now had universities and colleges back and you can see we now have hundreds of cases inside those institutions.”
NHS Fife has confirmed seven workers from Kettle Produce, in Balmalcolm in Fife, have tested positive for Covid-19. It said all confirmed cases had mild symptoms and were currently isolating at home.
Public health teams in Scotland are currently dealing with a number of large outbreaks among students living in shared accommodation.
More than 170 students have tested positive in halls of residence at the University of Glasgow and there have been other outbreaks in Dundee, Aberdeen and Edinburgh.
Police were called to break up a number of parties at the University of Edinburgh’s main halls of residence. Officers said they had dispersed “numerous” groups on Friday night at Pollock Halls of Residence, where about 1900 students live.
Students in Scotland were told not to go to pubs, parties or restaurants this weekend in an attempt to slow a spate of coronavirus outbreaks.
The University of Edinburgh said a “small number” of students had tested positive.
Some of the positive cases are understood to be at one of the Holland House blocks, which is part of Pollock Halls.
A spokesperson for the university said it was “not asking for whole halls of student accommodation to self-isolate”.
Police Scotland confirmed they were called to Pollock Halls of Residence, on the edge of Holyrood Park, after “informants” raised concerns the parties were breaching regulations that prevent more than one household mixing indoors.
Inspector David Hughes said: “Police Scotland attended and we’ve spoken to a number of the parties and dispersed those individuals. No arrests were made and no fines were issued. It must feel strange to people of that age and you can understand their frustrations in relation to the current regulations.’’
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel