Nicola Sturgeon keeps Glasgow in Level 3 lockdown for another WEEK as daily Covid cases in Scotland hit highest since March and R rate soars to 1.3 due to Indian variant
- The First Minister said that the country’s R rate may have risen as high as 1.3
- Glasgow outbreak showing signs of ‘stabilising’ but it’s too early to open it up
- Will stay in Level 3 for at least another week, potentially moving to Level 2 after
Nicola Sturgeon kept Glasgow in high lockdown for another week today as she revealed that the Indian Covid variant has seen cases hit their highest since March.
The First Minister said that the country’s R rate may have risen as high as 1.3 with the new strain accounting for half of cases.
But she added that the evidence pointed to younger people – who are less likely to experience severe illness – being the most affected.
While the current outbreak in Glasgow showed signs of ‘stabilising’ she said it was too early to open it up. Instead it will stay in Level 3 for at least another week, before potentially moving to Level 2.
Glasgow is the only part of Scotland under Level 3 lockdown rules, prohibiting non-essential travel out of the area and imposing greater restrictions on socialising, hospitality and businesses.
Speaking at the coronavirus briefing in Edinburgh on Friday, the First Minister said there still needed to be a ‘reasonable degree of caution’ exercised across the country.
Case numbers, she said, are on the rise in Scotland, with Friday’s daily case number the highest since March 25.
Glasgow is the only part of Scotland under Level 3 lockdown rules, prohibiting non-essential travel out of the area and imposing greater restrictions on socialising, hospitality and businesses.
The First Minister said that the country’s R rate may have risen as high as 1.3 with the new Indian Variant accounting for half of cases.
Why are admissions going up if so many people have been vaccinated?
Admissions were bound to creep up when restrictions were eased because the virus would spread easier, experts warned. The extra-transmissibility of the Indian variant has meant outbreaks are growing quicker than expected in some hotspots.
Vaccines have severed the link between getting infected and becoming severely ill, meaning hospitals should not be overwhelmed by any future resurgence of the disease.
But no jab is perfect. Therefore, the link has not been completely broken and admissions will still rise if infections are able to spiral.
However, ministers have been given hope by early signs that the patients being admitted tend to be younger and unvaccinated, offering proof that the jabs – deployed to the oldest residents first – can keep any third wave under control.
Scientists calling for a delay of lockdown-easing measures say ministers should wait for more people to have had both doses so that the country has more immunity against the disease. Two jabs offer more protection than just a single one. Fewer than half of Britain’s adult population are fully vaccinated.
Ms Sturgeon told a press conference today that Glasgow will move to Level 2 from next Saturday if the current trajectory of Covid-19 continues.
The First Minister said at the coronavirus briefing in Edinburgh that the case numbers in Glasgow – 234 new cases were reported on Friday – were still ‘uncomfortably high’ and it would be ‘premature’ to move Scotland’s biggest city into Level 2 immediately.
Cases last week in Glasgow continued to rise by 30 per cent, the First Minister reported, while test positivity remained around 4 per cent, but public health experts have said the restrictions have had an impact on transmission in the city.
‘There are some early signs that the situation is stabilising in Glasgow,’ the First Minister said.
But she added: ‘Weighing up all of these different factors is inevitably really difficult – case numbers in Glasgow… are uncomfortably high, but we are seeing signs of progress.
‘The view of the national incident management team is two-fold. Firstly, that it would be premature to move Glasgow out of Level 3 immediately this week while the situation remains so fragile.
‘However, and secondly, if incidence continues to stabilise and assuming levels of hospitalisation remain reasonably stable, the incident management team has made clear to me that they would support a move to Level 2 from the end of next week.’
People in Glasgow should ‘take heart’ that coronavirus figures appear to be dropping, Nicola Sturgeon has said.
Coronavirus hospital admissions have started to creep up in Scotland, according to official data.
Covid occupancy rates in mid-May plunged to the lowest levels since before the second wave spiralled out of control in September, with just 63 infected patients needing care on average.
But the figure now stands at around 91, having risen by around a third in the space of a week.
For comparison, more than 2,000 Covid patients in Scotland were being treated by doctors during the darkest days of the second wave in January.
Patients are scattered between just five of the 14 NHS boards, however.
Close to fifty patients are currently being treated by medics at NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, which has been hit hard by the Indian variant and was kept back from following the rest of the country into the next step of lockdown-easing because of a spike in cases.
Patient numbers remain in single figures in NHS Grampian, NHS Lothian and NHS Lanarkshire. There are currently 11 coronavirus patients being treated at NHS Ayrshire & Arran.
The other nine health boards have fewer than five patients.
The First Minister announced on Friday at the coronavirus briefing that Glasgow would move down to Level 2 from next Saturday if the current figures remain good.
‘My message to the people of Glasgow is don’t lose heart, on the contrary, take heart from the progress that we are seeing,’ she said.
‘I live in Glasgow, so I know how hard this is from my own personal life, but please continue to help with all of the public health efforts that are in place because if we continue to do this then we will make that move down from Level 3 to Level 2 and then after that hopefully get back on track and down the levels further.’
Ms Sturgeon also said she would confirm if the rest of Scotland would be able to move to Level 1 on June 7, as planned, on Tuesday in Holyrood.
Source: Read Full Article