DON’T RISK IT PEOPLE WILL DIE
Dire warning to public not to venture out in weekend sunshine
THE public have been warned “people will die” if they do not stay at home on lockdown – despite warm weather forecast for this weekend.
UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock gave the “instruction” last night to stop further spread of the coronavirus.
He said: “The disease is still spreading and
SCOTS were warned yesterday not to book a summer holiday as the world could still be gripped by coronavirus.
It came as the Scottish death toll rose by 46 to 172, with the number of confirmed cases now at 3001.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “I don’t think anybody should be under any great expectation that summer holidays will be happening as normal. I wish I could say otherwise but right now I don’t think that would be a safe assumption for anybody to make.”
Sturgeon also said there were 1321 people in Scottish hospitals of whom 176 were in intensive care.
And she revealed that testing in Scotland will eventually be ramped up to 10,000 cases a day – about the same level as the 100,000 figure targeted by the UK Government for England by the end of the month.
Sturgeon said that by the end of the month 3500 tests would be carried out every day within existing NHS capacity, which puts Scotland proportionately ahead of England, where there is currently only capacity for 25,000.
She added: “It is not the right comparison to compare our 3500 to the UK’s 100,000 – the comparison is 25,000. In addition to NHS testing, we are both trying to get to a level which for the UK is 100,000 and for us is 10 per cent of that – so there is no difference in the aims we have set. “There has been a lot of attention around the UK Government’s pledge to test 100,000 people a day by the end of April. It is not for me to set out the basis for the UK Government’s target or how it plans to get there but I have to set out what Scotland is doing. “We are increasing NHS Scotland’s capacity from 1900 tests a day to at least 3500 by the end of the month at the latest.” Glasgow University will host a testing facility in collaboration with the Scottish Government and industry experts from BioAscent Discovery and Dundee University’s Drug Discovery Unit.
The new centre will be able to provide capacity for substantially more Covid-19 tests per day and will be located at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.
The site, currently in Glasgow University’s Clinical Innovation Zone, is designed to meet industrial standards and testing will begin by the middle of this month.
It will be staffed by more than 500 volunteers including scientists, technicians and bioinformaticians.
Meanwhile, Sturgeon refuted suggestions the peak of the virus will happen in a week’s time, adding: “Nothing I have seen gives me any basis whatsoever that the virus will peak as early as a week’s time here in Scotland. I don’t want people to have a false expectation.
“I have to ask people to continue to stick with these measures no matter how difficult they are.”
Chief medical officer Catherine Calderwood added: “I have seen cases rise every day and I have not been able to find a peak happening.
“We have always said it would take two to three weeks to be able to have some more certainty but, even then, there will be some lack of knowledge because of numbers still increasing, so I would encourage people to keep going with these stringent measures.
“Now is not the time to think it will be over soon.”