‘Contacts of contacts’ traced after Brazil variant arrives in Scotland
Health officials are carrying out enhanced contact tracing efforts after the Brazilian variant of Covid-19 was detected in Scotland.
There are six UK cases of the P1 variant first detected in the Brazilian city of Manaus three in Scotland and three in England.
The Scottish residents were asymptomatic and tested positive for the new strain after flying into Aberdeen from Brazil, via Paris and London. Other passengers who were on the same British Airways flight from London on January 29 are now being contacted.
The Scottish Government’s clinical director Jason Leitch said the three who tested positive in Scotland are oil workers who were working offshore in Brazil and flying home to their families in Aberdeen. He said the situation was “well handled” by the three individuals, their families and their employer.
Experts believe the variant (P1) - first detected in northern Brazil in January - could be more contagious than the first strain from China.
Gillian Evans, head of health intelligence at NHS Grampian, said the three Scottish travellers had arrived in Aberdeen in early February, before new rules on hotel quarantine
came into force.
She told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme they had isolated together for ten days after arrival in accommodation provided by their employer. They tested positive while in isolation, having developed symptoms after arriving there.
Ms Evans said that health protection specialists were now following up "contacts of their contacts" in an effort to ensure that any further cases were found quickly.
"That's not standard procedure, that's going one stage further," she said. "But of course they have been quarantined for ten days in managed isolation for that period of time, so you would think that they wouldn't have many contacts to follow up.
"Nonetheless, that's an added precaution that's been taken by health protection specialists."
At the Scottish Government’s
daily coronavirus briefing, Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said the arrival of the new variant shows the UK’S “red list” quarantine system for international arrivals does not work.
Ms Freeman said the Scottish government was doing “everything it can” to contain the variant and identify any possible chains of transmission.
In light of the discovery, Ms Freeman said the “red list” system for quarantining international arrivals was “inadequate”.
Under the system, international arrivals to airports in England must only quarantine in a hotel if coming from a “red list” country, while in Scotland all arrivals must stay in a hotel, with the exception only of only those coming from within the common travel area - United Kingdom, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands.
The red list includes Brazil and neighbouring South American countries.
Ms Freeman said: "The Scottish government has consistently argued that the red list as the sole means of introducing and providing managed quarantine is inadequate, and why we continue to argue that it should be for all international arrivals,” she said.
"One of the reasons for that is that, as you've heard, the virus mutates, and it can be mutating in any country.
"It's not enough just to single some out as really critical, it could be elsewhere. And of course if genomic sequencing is not where we need it to be across the globe… then that doesn't help manage the risk either. Every time we have those four-nations discussions, whether it is me as a four-nation discussion with my colleague health ministers, or one that involves the First Minister, we continue to make the point that our control of our international borders is a critical step in managing the risk of coronavirus and bringing down the levels here in the UK.
"That continues to be our main argument, if you like, our main area that we seek to persuade the UK Government. And we will keep on doing that.”
The health secretary said she agreed with comments from Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at Edinburgh University, who responded to news of the Brazil variant in Scotland on Twitter on Sunday.
"Why robust testing and quarantine policies are needed for international travel given number of circulating variants,” said Prof Sridhar.
"And why just 'red-list' country approach doesn't work (flew from Brazil via Paris and London). Hopefully quickly contained in this instance.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in response to news of the Brazil variant in the UK – with three cases also identified in England – that the UK has “one of the toughest border regimes anywhere in the world”.
Asked if the Government was too slow to implement quarantine hotel measures, he said: “I don’t think so – we moved as fast as we could to get that going.”
Labourleadersirkeirstarmer said the discovery of the Brazil variant showed the Government had not “secured our borders in the way we should have done”.
Ms Freeman said there was “no reason” to believe the Brazil variant, known as “P1”, was in circulation in the the community in Scotland. "I want to stress that there is currently no reason to believe that the P1 varient of the virus is in circulation in Scotland,” she said.
THE SCOTSMAN Tuesday 2 March 2021
‘Everybody is just tired’ inside a Covid-19 intensive care unit
With Covid-19 case numbers falling, schools slowly reopening and care home visiting returning, the worst of the pandemic appears to be easing.
One year on from the first cases in Scotland, the unit at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary has shrunk from a peak of 23 beds to just four. But while staff are contending with fewer patients, they have seen spikes in non-covid intensive care admissions, and are having to cope without the influx or extra staff and support which was drafted in during the first wave.
“Everybody is really tired,” said charge nurse Gill Maclean.
“It’s been a long, hard year, and to be back a year down the line still with Covid areas… Nurses are always cheery folk - we’re trained to get by, aren’t we? But staff are definitely tired and weary.”
Elsa Maishman
Lisa Blues, also a charge nurse, added: “The last time there were a lot of people redeployed to help us from other areas, now that’s not there.
“I think at the start there was a feeling of everybody mucking in together and getting on, and there is still that, but when it’s a much smaller group of people to share it amongst, the load is heavier, there aren’t as many people now.
“In the ICU as well, we have Covid but the other patients who need ICU still come - it’s not just Covid, it’s also all the non-covid things which continue to come through. Everything just feels a bit tight now - staffing is tight, beds are tight…
“Everybody’s just tired, I think that’s the best way to describe it.”
Ms Maclean added concern that some staff are leaving due to the pressure - not necessarily caused by the pandemic - a warning echoed by doctors’ union BMA Scotland last week.
Ms Maclean said: “People are tiring of it, we see people leaving. We’re losing senior staff, and obviously they’re replaced with quite junior people, who have got to be trained up.
“I’m not saying they have specifically left due to Covid reasons, but I think there is a percentage of staff in critical care who are moving on to do other things just because of the intensity of the workload.”
Some aspects of work now are much easier, both nurses said, including being more used to wearing PPE, as well as the PPE itself being more comfortable due to policies which have evolved based on more knowledge about how the virus spreads. Having fewer patients also makes life easier, but there also is more non-covid work to be done.
“During the first wave we didn’t have the same flow of non-covid patients - there weren’t the same trauma patients coming through because people weren’t driving, or doing extreme sports et cetera,” said Ms Maclean.
“We didn’t have the same cardiac arrests, or even overdoses, we didn’t have the same flow of that as now, and it’s because people are going about their normal business really now.”
Staff are working longer hours now, said senior charge nurse Stephen Walls, as during the first wave the extra staff brought in from other departments, or out of retirement, meant people could take much-needed longer breaks.”