Household mixing at Christmas in Scotland will come at a cost, leading medic warns

The relaxation of lockdown rules in Scotland to allow mixing between households will come at a cost, a leading health expert has warned.

Professor Jackie Taylor, president of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, said non-urgent care would have to be paused in Scotland to cope with a rise in cases over the festive period.

She told BBC Breakfast: “Everybody has been working over the last nine months to try and ensure that we catch up with the backlog and we will continue to do that.

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"But the harsh reality is that some places that are under pressure, some of that non-urgent work will have to be paused. We have to focus on urgent work and we have to be able to roll out the vaccination programme.”

The relaxation of restrictions at Christmas will come at a cost, Professor Taylor warned.The relaxation of restrictions at Christmas will come at a cost, Professor Taylor warned.
The relaxation of restrictions at Christmas will come at a cost, Professor Taylor warned.

She added: “There are hidden harms from Covid both in terms of operations and all sorts of other social and mental health and economic harms, which we are all very, very aware of.

“As healthcare professionals, we want to be able to treat everyone, we want to ensure everyone gets the best of care, but unless we get a grip of Covid and really get on top of this then we won’t be able to open up the other services again.

“We have to focus on getting on top of the acute problems we have at the moment.”

Prof Taylor did not condemn the Scottish Government for relaxing the rules.

“We have to remember our humanity and how important it is for some people to have had the ability to be with family even for a short time,” she said.

“I think it is absolutely right that the restrictions were only flexed for that day, but inevitably there will be a cost for this.

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“When there is increased mixing we know there is likely to be increased transmission. [Scotland’s] levels have never fallen to the kind of levels that we would have wished, so we are starting from a higher base.

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“In addition, the new variant strain we are seeing does appear to be significantly more transmissible and that does give us great cause for concern. When we add that to the usual winter pressures, we are really very anxious for the potential of a further huge surge of cases.”

No data on Covid-19 deaths and cases in Scotland was released over the Christmas period.

Infection rates in England are currently highest in London and the South-East – areas which have been placed into England’s tier four lockdown.

Dr Katherine Henderson, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, described her experience of working in a hospital in London on Christmas Day as “wall to wall Covid”.

"We see patients who are coming in who have Covid symptoms and then we have other people coming in with other symptoms who turn out to be Covid positive,” she said.

“Between that, there’s a great deal of difficulty getting those patients through into the wards.”

The 7,918 calls received by London Ambulance Service on December 26 was up more than 2,500 on the 5,217 received on the same day last year.

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