PASSENGERS who flew up to Scotland with three travellers later found to have a new strain of coronavirus are being urged to call contact tracers.
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman had previously said that all those on board the BA1312 flight from Heathrow to Aberdeen on January 29 would be called.
While she said that work was continuing, Freeman said correct details were not available for all travellers.
And she appealed for anyone who was on the flight to contact the NHS National Contact Tracing Centre.
The Health Secretary said: “Because not all the data we have received about the passengers is correct, we are asking anyone on that flight who did not provide up-to-date contact details should call the NHS National Contact Tracing Centre on 0800 030 8012.”
The Health Secretary said that this new P1 variant of coronavirus, first detected in the Brazilian city of Manaus, was “of concern in terms of both the possibility that it is more contagious than the current dominant Covid-19 strain in Scotland, and how it responds to the current vaccines”.
Expert work on both these issues is continuing, she added.
Her comments came after it emerged on Sunday that there were six cases in the UK of the new strain: three in England and three in Scotland.
The three Scottish cases were found in asymptomatic passengers, who tested positive while self-isolating.
Freeman said: “Contact tracing has been undertaken, close contacts followed up and offered testing as usual and, as an additional precautionary step, the close contacts of these close contacts have been identified and followed up.”
She added: “This additional step is being taken to ensure that all possible precautions are underway.”
And while Prime Minister Boris Johnson has insisted that the UK has “one of the toughest border regimes anywhere in the world”, Freeman insisted stricter measures could be introduced.
Scotland requires all people arriving from overseas to spend 10 days in a quarantine hotel – but travellers arriving in England only have to do this if they arrive from one of the UK Government’s “red list” countries.
Green Holyrood co-leader Alison Johnstone raised the issue with Freeman, saying that the “current border restrictions cannot adequately protect people in Scotland from this concerning strain of Covid-19”.
Freeman said yesterday that there is no reason to believe that the Brazilian strain of Covid-19 is in circulation in Scotland but efforts to “identify and break any possible chains of transmission” are ongoing.
READ MORE: 'No reason to believe' Brazilian Covid variant is in circulation in Scotland
Freeman told the Scottish Government’s daily Covid-19 briefing: “If you were on that flight and have not yet been contacted, you will be contacted shortly, so please wait for that.
“I want to stress that there is currently no reason to believe that the P1 variant of the virus is in circulation in Scotland, however, I hope this summary reassures you that we are doing everything we can and everything necessary to check whether this variant of the virus could have been transmitted within Scotland and to identify and break any possible chains of transmission.”
She added: “We know that current vaccines are effective against the strains of the virus which have already been established in the UK.
“However, more work is required to determine that this remains the case for emerging strains of the virus, such as the one we are highlighting today from Brazil.”
Monday marks one year since the first confirmed case of coronavirus in Scotland, and Freeman said that “after 12 long months an end to the pandemic may now be in sight”.
“During the last 12 months our lives have been turned upside down in ways which would have been absolutely unimaginable at the beginning of 2020,” she said.
“For thousands of families who have lost loved ones to this virus … the last 12 months have brought grief and heartbreak.
“Many people have been anxious about their own health and that of their loved ones, or they have faced economic hardship due to redundancy or furlough.
“For all us, forced separation from friends and loved ones has been, and is, hard to endure.”
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