Coronavirus spread earlier in Scotland than originally thought

Coronavirus may have been spreading in Scotland before the first cases were confirmed in March, it was revealed today.

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Scotland’s interim Chief Medical Officer, Dr Gregor Smith, said that scientists had discovered a strain of the virus was live in the community in February –although the first official cases weren’t recorded until the following month.

Genetic studies had, he said, established the “family trees” of coronavirus as it spread through the population, and had discovered there were at least 112 separate introductions of Covid-19 into Scotland.

Dr Gregor Smith has said community transmission of coronavirus was happening earlier than originally thought.

Speaking at the government’s daily briefing, Dr Smith said that the “lineages” found in Scotland were mainly associated with the continental European epicentre of the virus.

He said research “has identified viral lineages with no clear link to travel at the very early stages of the outbreak in Scotland, suggesting that there may have been earlier introduction to Scotland, and community spread, even before the first cases emerged.”

Discussing the outbreak associated with the Nike conference in Edinburgh at the end of February, which led to eight Scottish cases of coronavirus, he said direct evidence of further spread had not been established.

“This particular sub-lineage of the virus has not been detected in Scotland since towards the end of March. This suggests that the actions taken by the IMT (incident management team) to manage this outbreak were successful in curtailing spread and led to the eradication of this particular viral lineage.”

Asked if all coronavirus cases in early March could be linked to being brought in from abroad, he said no, adding “what that suggests is that there was some form of community transmission which was under way in Scotland probably during the month of February but it's difficult to be closer than that.”

He stressed the number of cases in February would have been very small, with the main peak taking place towards the end of March and early April.

Dr Smith said: "What we're saying is that this data suggests there may have been some cases which were imported into Scotland during February but the reality is that they're likely to be very few in number."

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