Virus cases down

New coronavirus cases in Lanarkshire fell by almost 10 per cent last week.

At her daily press briefing in Edinburgh on Monday, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon confirmed there had been a further 97 positive tests across the region yesterday.

Although case numbers are usually lower over the weekend, Monday was the first day this year that fewer than 100 new cases were announced in a single day.

As a result, there were 987 new coronavirus cases in the county last week – 9.1 per cent fewer than the previous week and the first time in eight weeks that fewer than 1000 cases were recorded in a week.

Last week was the fifth consecutive week in which new case numbers fell in the county.

Overall, Covid-19 cases in Lanarkshire are now down by 58 per cent since the peak in the week beginning January 4 when 2353 were confirmed.

In total, 35,158 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in Lanarkshire and 1138 people have died after testing positive.

Lanarkshire has been the worst affected region in Scotland by coronavirus with 5297 cases and 171.9 deaths for every 100,000 residents.

South Lanarkshire Council has spent £300 to provide subtitles for a meeting.

Recordings of virtual meetings are due to start being published on the council’s website.

However, equality legislation requires either a BSL interpretation or subtitles be included.

Head of administration and legal services Geraldine McCann said that the council had“negotiated an introductory cost”to provide subtitles for the executive committee meeting held on January 13.

Since the start of the year, committee clerks have made councillors aware at the start of meetings that recordings will be made available to the public, but none had appeared before he executive committee meeting held on Wednesday, February 10.

At the start of the meeting, Rutherglen South councillor Robert Brown asked what the “current state of play”was and added:“How long is it going to be between the meetings of the committee and the thing going up on the website?

“If this is going to be like a month or something it’s almost pointless.”

Executive director for finance, Paul Manning, said there were some teething issues that the contractor had worked through and reassured councillors that future meetings would be uploaded quicker.

He said:“It has taken so long because this is the first time we are doing this.

“The film of the meeting had to be sent through and they came back with a subtitled version which had to be checked.

“It is not going to be anything like the length of time to get this initial meeting up and running.”

Only one of the 10 public meetings held in January had been sent to the contractor as officers wanted to ensure the quality of the process before sending the rest.

The finalised version has now been received and it is anticipated that future meetings could be uploaded around one week after they have taken place.

Cambuslang East councillor Katy Loudon was concerned about the “very convoluted process”and said:“I’m just conscious that we haven’t had any discussion about how much of a cost that’s going to be to the council.”

Ms McCann said:“We negotiated an introductory cost for the first meeting. The cost depends on the length of the meeting.

“The special executive committee was 38 minutes and the introductory cost we negotiated was £300.

“For meetings that are longer, the costs will increase.”

Next month, South Lanarkshire Council are set to trial live streaming of council meetings starting with the finance and corporate committee.