Covid in Scotland LIVE: First Minister Nicola Sturgeon addresses country as more cases of the new coronavirus variant, Omicron, are found in Scotland
Nicola Sturgeon will be addressing Scotland on Tuesday with an update on coronavirus, and specifically the new variant, Omicron.
Cases of this new variant have already been confirmed in the country, and the First Minister has already stressed the need for caution.
Follow here for all live updates.
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Nicola Sturgeon briefing: Follow here for all updates from the First Minister’s Tuesday briefing
However, while the contact tracing exercise is still ongoing, health protection teams have established
that all nine cases are linked.
They all trace back to a single private event on 20 November.
None of these individuals - as far as we know - has recent travel history to or known links with others
who have travelled to the countries in Southern Africa where the variant was originally detected.
Let me say, firstly, that none of the people who have tested positive have so far required hospital care.
Let me turn now to our current understanding of the presence of the Omicron variant in Scotland.
I can confirm that, as of 5pm yesterday, there are 9 confirmed cases in Scotland.
5 of these are in Lanarkshire and 4 in Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
However, while hoping very much for the best, it is prudent at this stage to contemplate and prepare for
something less positive than that.
It is worth stressing that there is no evidence at this stage to suggest that the disease caused by
Omicron is more severe than that caused by other variants – again, however, further analysis is required
before we can be certain of this.
Thanks to the work of the global scientific community, we will find out much more about Omicron in the
days and weeks ahead - and as our knowledge and understanding expands, we will be able to assess
with more certainty the implications for our response to the pandemic.
This risk remains very real – and if it materialises, would put significant additional pressure on our NHS.
The vaccination – together with continued compliance with the protections still in place – is
applying a firm downward pressure on transmission, and therefore reducing the overall health harms
caused by the virus
All of that said, the NHS is still under severe pressure.
Case numbers in Scotland - though falling - remain very high.
In my statement last week, I expressed the view that our overall situation was much stronger than I had
dared hope.
Case numbers – although still too high – had stabilized, and indeed started to decline.
Since then the data has become, if anything, even more encouraging.
However, while case numbers here have continued to fall, the world has received the deeply worrying
news of the new Omicron variant.
Scotland has recorded 10 coronavirus-linked deaths and 2,569 new cases in the past 24 hours, according to the latest data.
It means the death toll under this daily measure - of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days - is 9,572.
The daily test positivity rate was 11.5% according to data published by the Scottish Government on Tuesday, up from 10.7% the previous day.
There were 706 people in hospital with recently confirmed Covid-19 as of Monday night and, of these, 54 people were in intensive care.
So far, 4,346,736 people have received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccination, 3,949,736 have had a second, and 1,687,792 have been given a third dose or booster.
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