Nike conference ‘brought Covid to Scotland’

A conference staged by Nike at an Edinburgh hotel was “Ground Zero” for the coronavirus outbreak in Scotland, a BBC documentary reported ast night.

The country’s first official Covid-19 case, involving a hospital patient in Tayside, was announced on March 2. However, the BBC’S Disclosure programme claimed the outbreak

started after the virus was brought to Scotland in late February. The programme said one of 70 delegates from 28 countries around the world attending a Nike conference at the city’s Hilton Carlton Hotel brought the virus into Edinburgh. The carrier infected other Nike employees, who then returned to their own countries. At least 25 people linked to the conference were reportedly confirmed to have been infected – including eight in Scotland.

Scottish health authorities were aware of the potential outbreak by 2 March, but the public were not informed – as Nike closed many of its stores around the UK and worldwide for deep cleans.

Despite knowing the virus had been present since at least 26 or 27 February, mass gatherings were not banned in Scotland until 16 March while lockdown measures were introduced on 23 March.

The Disclosure programme also said modelling done by scientists at the University of Edinburgh suggest that if lockdown measure had been brought in on 9 March, around 577 people would have dies – about 80 per cent lower than the actual total of 2,795.