120 CARE HOMES HIT BY COVID
Yousaf weighs options after outbreak
MORE than 120 care homes across Scotland are dealing with an outbreak of coronavirus.
Health Secretary Humza Yousaf revealed that because of the high level of community transmission, Covid has spread into the care sector over the last couple of weeks.
Cases have surged since Scotland removed the majority of lockdown restrictions on August 9.
During a session of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, the SNP minister said the situation was being monitored.
Latest weekly figures, up to August 29, showed that 48 people died from Covid in Scotland. There were 36 deaths in hospitals, seven in care homes and five at home or in a noninstitutional setting.
Yousaf said: “High levels of community transmission are having an impact on our care sector. I saw yesterday that more than 120 care homes have an outbreak of Covid.
“That’s not an insignificant number therefore difficult decisions have to be made. We’re looking at this on a daily basis to try to ensure the rights of care home relatives are paramount.”
Before retiring as health secretary, Jeane Freeman admitted “mistakes” were made in the sector.
She said: “Our failures were not understanding the social care sector well enough. We didn’t respond quickly enough to what was needed in our care homes but also in social care in the community.
“Early predictions about the number of people going into hospital were terrifying. But we didn’t take the right precautions to make sure that older people leaving hospital going into care homes were as safe as they could be.”