'Still bumps to come with covid but the situation is very different from the first two waves' says Gregor Smith

Gregor Smith, the chief medical officer for Scotland, has said that there are still bumps to come with the pandemic, however, added that the situation is ‘very different’ from the first two waves.

Gregor Smith, the chief medical officer for Scotland, has said that there are still bumps to come with the pandemic as hospital admissions rise.

The news comes as the Scottish Government latest daily statistics show that 1,747 people in Scotland tested positive for the virus in the last 24 hours as hospital admissions rise.

Yesterday, 188 people were in hospital with recently confirmed covid – a rise of 17 people in comparison to Tuesday’s figure.

On Tuesday, during an update to Parliament, the First Minister announced that 171 people were in hospital – a rise of 12 in comparison to Monday’s figures – and 18 people were in intensive care.

Yesterday, 16 people were in intensive care, according to the latest statistics.

Tweeting on Friday, Dr Smith said: “The rise in cases might be alarming for some people, but it’s important to emphasise that we’re in a very different phase now - vaccines significantly modify the spread, impact and severity of disease. All of this is being very carefully monitored across UK.

"The link between cases and hospitalisation has very substantially weakened, and for the majority needing hospital care the length of stay is shorter with less severe disease. Again, this is all being very closely monitored. Vaccination remains the best protection.

"More cases are being found than before - surge testing means that we’re doing more PCR testing especially, and revealing more positive cases than previous points in the pandemic. We can see this from comparisons of daily cases and background prevalence in ONS survey.

"But it remains absolutely critical to test and isolate if you have symptoms you think may be COVID19- please book a PCR if you’re symptomatic, don’t use LFDs. And isolate from others unless you’re told your result is negative. It’s hard but it’s still necessary.

"There are still bumps to come with COVID but the situation is very different from the first two waves. Vaccination is being accelerated as fast as supplies allow & second dose gap has been narrowed to 8w.

"Please make sure you get 2nd dose for longer, more effective protection.”

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