Covid-19 infections in over-40s on rise in Scotland as student outbreaks confuse overall picture

Nicola Sturgeon has warned that transmission of Covid-19 among older age groups in Scotland is on the rise and could lead to more deaths from the virus.

Cases in the over-40s are rising again, Nicola Sturgeon has warned

The First Minister’s warning came as national clinical director Jason Leitch used evidence from around Europe, including Spain, of the consequences of letting the virus spread through the young, including a return to higher death counts for the elderly population.

During her daily coronavirus briefing, Ms Sturgeon said a “significant majority” of the more than 800 cases reported today are in the younger population, but a third of the cases are in the over-40s and “a number” in the over-60s age group.

She warned transmission was rising “across the spectrum” and said the restrictions in place would help reduce the spread of the virus amongst older, more vulnerable people.

However, Prof Leitch said it would take the end of the impact of student outbreaks before restrictions imposed last week could be judged.

He said discovering the nature of where the virus was picked up had become “more confused” due to additional restrictions in parts of Scotland plus the student outbreaks.

Prof Leitch said: "We’re not going to know if the blunting of our cases is still going ahead until we get through these days and weeks of those student outbreaks and then we’ll know if the national restrictions are doing what they are meant to be.”

The First Minister said household visits and hospitality were still viewed as the main driver of infection across Scotland, but echoed the fact it would be weeks until the new restrictions could be viewed as a success.

Asked about the trends in infections, Ms Sturgeon said there were different trends for different age groups.

She said: “We look at this regularly and yes, there will be different trends for different age groups.

"Obviously with the younger age groups it is not exclusively around universities, but that may be a significant driver.

"In older age groups it certainly appears the two significant themes continue to be household mixing and hospitality.

"Remember that a lot of the cases we are reporting now will have been infections that probably happened before the latest restrictions came in place so we will always have a lag effect and it will be a couple of weeks before we see the benefit, hopefully, on the latest restrictions around household gatherings.

"We look closely at this and try to direct our responses based on what that is telling us, but as we put in place different restrictions what we hope to see is infection rates start to reduce again after a period of time, but also the drivers of that and what shows up in the infection rates that we have will start to change. But at the moment hospitality and household interactions will still be significant drivers in the cases we are seeing coming through right now."

Prof Leitch said: “When you add more variables it becomes more difficult. If you want to a table of age plus site, it gets more difficult because we don’t know exactly where everybody caught it remember.

"We have to then look in the generality of where people have been when they get positive and that remains homes and hospitality.”

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