Covid Scotland: Face mask requirement expected to be dropped as hospital admission rates 'top out'

Ministers will be advised to take a “cautious approach” to lifting the remaining coronavirus restrictions in Scotland, the chief medical officer has said.

Professor Sir Gregor Smith said he is “keeping a close eye on” rising infection levels and hospital cases.

However, he said there is some early evidence the hospital admission rate is beginning to “top out”.

Scotland’s legal Covid-19 restrictions, including the requirement to wear face masks, are currently due to end on March 21.

Nicola Sturgeon will give a coronavirus update in the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday.

Speaking to the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme on Monday, Sir Gregor said ministers will make a decision on whether to go ahead with lifting the face mask requirement shortly.

He said data shows some older people are beginning to adapt their behaviour by reducing their contacts slightly, while the use of face masks is also up.

Asked what advice he would give to ministers, he said: “I think that a cautious approach at this point in time is probably the right approach, and we’re already seeing the public adopting those additional protections.”

In the first week of March, an estimated one in every 18 Scots had Covid-19, data from the Office for National Statistics showed.

Sir Gregor said: “We’ve been keeping a close eye on these for the last three weeks, and clearly when you see cases begin to increase like this it does give you a little bit of concern.”

Hospital occupancy began to rise around February 14, he said.

He added: “We’re seeing more older population becoming impacted on this occasion, and that’s leading to some longer lengths of stay, which is driving occupancy up as well.”

Sir Gregor said there are “some hopeful signs” the hospital admission rate “has begun to kind of top out just a little bit over the course of the latter end of last week”.

Last week, posting on Twitter, the leading medic explained that 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.

A message from the Editor:Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.