Chief medical officer: Many more Covid cases – very few in ICU
Scotland’s record number of Covid infection cases has not been reflected in large numbers of seriously ill ICU patients, the country’s chief medical officer has said.
Professor Sir Gregor Smith spoke out after the data from the Office for National Statistics showed that in the first week of March an estimated one in 18 Scots had the virus.
The most recent daily figures showed 1,663 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed Covid-19, with the number of people in hospital at its highest for 13 months.
Smith said there was “understandable interest/apprehension about rising case rates & hospital occupancy in Scotland”, but he insisted that the situation continued to be intensely monitored and assessed.
Posting on Twitter, Smith said Covid rates were increasing across all age groups, with this driven by rising numbers of the Omicron BA-2 sub-type, which is now dominant.
He added there was no evidence this variant was associated with more severe disease than previous forms of the virus.
With hospital numbers increasing, especially among those aged over 60, Smith conceded there were immense pressures on NHS staff.
But he added that “we’re not seeing the same volume of severe disease as before” with the number of people in intensive care “very low and stable”.
He added: “We’re also keeping a very close watch on vaccine effectiveness studies. The good news here is that length of protection after third dose continues to hold up very strongly against severe disease.”
His comments came as bosses at NHS Lanarkshire said hospitals there were working beyond maximum capacity.
The health board has reintroduced essential visiting only at its hospitals, with people also being urged to stay away from accident and emergency, where many patients are having to wait more than 10 hours.