No new lockdown but coronavirus cases on the rise
NICOLA Sturgeon has confirmed there will be no new Covid lockdown restrictions imposed this week.
The First Minister said, in her latest update: “No immediate changes are being proposed to the mitigation measures.”
She said the decision “reflects the assessment that the situation has improved but it remains fragile heading into the winter period”.
Sturgeon said: “Over the past three weeks the decline has levelled off and we are reporting a slight increase in cases.”
She said three weeks ago new cases were just under 2500 a day, now they are just above 2500 each day.
Hospitals, she said, were under pressure with more people being admitted and the winter flu season could add to the pressure.
She said: “Over the past three weeks the decline has levelled off and we are reporting a slight increase in cases.
“We are certainly not experiencing a surge in new cases of anything like the magnitude of late August.
“However, as we know from experience, there is never any room for complacency with this virus.
“We cannot and should not ignore the fact that case numbers have started to creep up again.
“Of course, even before this recent increase, they were at a higher level than we would have liked.”
The First Minister said that a combination of good compliance rates with mitigation measures like mask wearing and vaccination uptake had helped reduce case numbers in recent months.
With tens of thousands of people coming to Glasgow within the next week from all around the world the First Minister recognised the potential for cases to increase further. However, she said the COP26 summit is “one of the most important gatherings this century”.
She said: “The hosting of COP was always going to be a challenge.”
And she added the fact it is happening amid a global pandemic is even more of a challenge.
She said: “It’s inevitably the case that an event of this scale poses a risk.”
She said that steps are being taken to ensure that delegates are fully vaccinated before arrival and the event space has strict hygiene procedures. There have been concerns about the number of people travelling to Glasgow both for the official event and for planned and unplanned protests.
Some health experts have warned that restrictions may need to be reimposed after the event if it leads to a significant spike in cases and further pressure on the NHS.
The latest statistics showed there were 2262 new cases in the 24 hours up to Tuesday morning.
There were 917 people in hospital on Monday with Covid, an increase of 15 and 59 patients in intensive care, an increase of two.
Another 20 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours taking the total to 9072.
As of yesterday, 4,309,932 people had received a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccination and 3,897,133 had received a second dose.
Anas Sarwar, Scottish Labour leader, said there needs to be improvements to the vaccination booster programme to speed it up to get as many people protected before the winter period.
Sturgeon replied: “Nothing the Government is doing is more important than this.”
She added the vaccination programme has been an “outstanding success”.
There has been a slight increase in cases