Covid circumstances in Scotland have spiked by virtually a 3rd up to now week with the extremely infectious New York variant on the rise.
Public well being skilled Professor Linda Bauld has referred to as for an extension of the vaccination programme to all over-50s.
Up to now week, there have been 15,541 confirmed circumstances in Scotland – about 2200 circumstances per day – up 30.5 per cent on the earlier week.
The latest Workplace for Nationwide Statistics figures confirmed about one in 30 Scots with the virus – greater than 182,000.
There have additionally been rises within the numbers of individuals in hospital and in intensive care.
The latest figures present there have been 696 new hospital admissions and a median of 867 individuals in hospital with Covid within the final week.
There have been additionally 20 new admissions to intensive care.
With the Scottish Authorities’s choice to finish asymptomatic testing on the finish of April there are not any actual numbers however Bauld, Professor of Public Well being at Edinburgh College, mentioned we're “definitely in the midst of a spike”.
She mentioned: “The case numbers will not be a really good indication of what’s taking place for the time being as a result of it relies on who takes a take a look at.
"The ONS an infection fee is a greater indicator.”
Bauld mentioned there had been an increase in circumstances since Could but it surely was nonetheless too early to say if we had been experiencing a fourth wave.
She mentioned, nonetheless, the elevated hospital admissions was not essentially an indicator the virus was changing into extra severe, suggesting it was extra seemingly individuals going into hospital for different issues had been being examined and discovering they had been contaminated.
She added: “The information reveals these sub-lineages are a bit extra transmissable however there is no proof they trigger extra severe illness.”
However she mentioned: “If we see these hospital numbers proceed to go up over a extra sustained interval, my colleagues will develop into extra involved.”
Bauld mentioned there was “no cash tree” to permit for the continuation of asymptomatic testing however added: “We'd all worth wider availability of testing if it was extra inexpensive.
“We're ready to see what is going to occur for the vaccine programme. There was excellent uptake of spring boosters however I
wish to see the JCVI extending boosters to extra teams.”
Professor Rowland Kao, chair of veterinary epidemiology and information science at Edinburgh College, mentioned: “It appears to be rising extra in Scotland than in England and Wales. Why, we don’t know.
“Our residual immunity right here could also be totally different.
“Broadly talking, we in all probability did barely higher vaccination-wise – in that we received boosters out extra shortly – and mockingly that would imply we now have much less residual immunity now.”
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