The latest figures detailing the number of people diagnosed with Covid-19 in the last 24 hours in Scotland have been announced.
The Health Secretary Jeane Freeman led the media briefing along with the National Clinical Director Jason Leitch. The Health Secretary has confirmed that the supply of vaccine should allow for around 400,000 doses of vaccine to be administered over next week.
She also confirmed that 46% of 60 to 64 year-olds have received their first dose. Some readers have contacted us to advise that their blue letters from NHS Lothian with an appointment for vaccination have not yet arrived. When they phoned the helpline 0800 030 8013 they found that an appointment had been made in their name in the next few days or so.
Lothian MSP Miles Briggs has also been contacted by constituents and says that an urgent investigation must be made into the apparent breakdown in communication. He raised this at Holyrood yesterday at First Minister’s Questions. The First Minister replied: “As I have said, we will continue to break down, as far as we can, the information that is published. Earlier today, I said that, as of tomorrow, Public Health Scotland will improve its reporting, so we continue to try to improve the granularity of the data that is published.
“The vaccination programme is going better than we ever anticipated. More people have been vaccinated than we anticipated at the start of the year. That said, I absolutely understand, and identify with, people’s anxiety about getting their appointments as quickly as possible.
“I can understand the concern if people know somebody in a younger age group who has been vaccinated ahead of them. I will make two points about that. If that is the case, it is likely to be because the person in the younger age group has an underlying health condition that gives them the same level of priority as the older person.
“There is also a practical issue. If we were to work through people in a strictly chronological order and to not start vaccinating, for example, 55 to 59-year-olds until we had completed vaccinating 60 to 64-year-olds, the problem that Jamie Greene put to me—a bit unjustly, if I may say so—would become a real problem, because we would not be using vaccines as quickly as we could. Vaccines would be sitting on the stocks if we took that approach. We are taking the approach that we are taking to get to people as quickly as we possibly can.
“45% per cent of 60 to 64-year-olds have been vaccinated already. Others in that group will get their vaccination appointments on an on-going basis. General appointments will start going out to those in the 55 to 59-year-old and 50 to 54-year-old age groups. If people in those age groups have already been vaccinated, it is likely to be because they have an underlying health condition.
“I know that the approach that we are taking can create anomalies in people’s minds, but it is the best and quickest way to get through people as speedily as possible. That is why I can stand here and say—with a considerable degree of confidence—that, assuming that there is no unexpected interruption to supplies, everybody in the country who is over 50, every unpaid carer and every adult with an underlying health condition will have had the first dose of the vaccine by mid-April, and that, assuming that supplies allow it, the whole adult population will have been offered the first dose by the end of July.”
Miles Briggs said: “It is the responsibility of The Scottish Government to distribute vaccination appointment letters to everyone in Scotland.
“This week something has obviously gone very wrong with people not receiving their letter, or being told their appointment is not until May.
“An urgent investigation is needed to give people clarity on when their appointment will be and they are not being forgotten about.
“The rollout of the Covid-19 vaccination is too important to get wrong and we all want it to happen as quickly as possible so that restrictions can be lifted safely.
“SNP Ministers have to date refused to provide a breakdown of the numbers of people in age groups in each Health Board who have received the vaccination. It would be totally unacceptable for people in Lothian to be at the end of the queue.
“I would encourage people aged between 60-65, due for COVID-19 vaccine, who live in NHS Lothian and who have not received an appointment letter then phone 0800 030 8013”
The priority groups of people who will receive the vaccine in the next weeks will now include rough sleepers, and those living in emergency and supported accommodation in accordance with new guidance from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
The statistics in Scotland as at 12 March 2021 are shown below.
As at 7 March 2021, 9,725 deaths were registered in Scotland where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate according to weekly statistics reported by National Records of Scotland.
| Date | Newly reported cases of Covid-19 | Cases in Lothian | New tests | Test positivity rate (bold denotes days under 5.0% and the highest in recent weeks) | Newly reported deaths | Number of deaths according to daily measurement | Patients in ICU with confirmed Covid-19 | Patients in hospital with confirmed Covid-19 | Total number of positive cases since beginning of pandemic | Number of vaccinations administered | Number of daily vaccinations recorded for previous day with highest daily figure in bold (includes 1st and 2nd doses) | Number of people who have received their second dose of vaccine |
| 12 March 2021 | 682 | 102 | 22,596 | 3.4% | 17 | 7,500 | 38 | 512 | 208,429 | 1,844,636 | 26,812 | 149,409 |
| 11 March 2021 | 591 | 73 | 26,761 | 2.5% | 22 | 7,483 | 42 | 556 | 207,747 | 1,825,800 | 25,315 | 141,433 |
| 10 March 2021 | 691 | 96 | 24,998 | 3.1% | 20 | 7,461 | 50 | 582 | 207,156 | 1,809,158 | 28,855 | 132,760 |
| 9 March 2021 | 466 | 62 | 16,342 | 3.3% | 19 | 7,441 | 50 | 614 | 206,465 | 1,789,377 | 19,672 | 123,686 |
| 8 March 2021 | 501 | 67 | 11,529 | 5.0% | 1 | 7,422 | 59 | 654 | 205,999 | 1,774,659 | 17,711 | 118,732 |
| 7 March 2021 | 390 | 63 | 14,057 | 3.2% | 0 | 7,421 | 61 | 628 | 205,498 | 1,759,750 | 115,930 | |
| 6 March 2021 | 555 | 72 | 22,992 | 3.0% | 12 | 7,421 | 63 | 639 | 205,108 | 1,743,869 | 32,081 | 114,081 |
| 5 March 2021 | 498 | 73 | 3.1% | 11 | 7,409 | 64 | 666 | 1,717,672 | 29,064 | 108,197 | ||
| 4 March 2021 | 500 | 71 | 24,723 | 2.5% | 27 | 7,398 | 69 | 726 | 204,055 | 1,688,808 | 34,237 | 100,058 |
| 3 March 2021 | 543 | 77 | 24,377 | 2.6% | 35 | 7,371* | 69 | 750 | 203,555 | 1,661,879 | 35,623 | 92,550 |
| 2 March 2021 | 542 | 104 | 14,537 | 4.4% | 33 | 7,164 | 71 | 784 | 203,012 | 1,634,361 | 84,445 | |
| 1 March 2020 | 386 | 70 | 4.5% | 0 | 7,131 | 71 | 824 | 202,470 | ||||
| High and low numbers of newly reported cases since mid December 2020 | ||||||||||||
| 27 February 2021 | 525 | 106 | 19,615 | 3.1% | 18 | 7,129 | 74 | 898 | 201,512 | 1,570,153 | 27,224 | 72,178 |
| 4 February 2021 | 1,149 | 159 | 27,668 | 4.9% | 53 | 6,322 | 127 | 1,812 | 183,418 | 694,347 | 45,085 | 9,031 |
| Highs and lows in January | ||||||||||||
| 7 January 2021 | 2,649 | 357 | 11.3% | 78 | 100 | 1,467 | 143,715 | |||||
| 31 December 2021 | 2,622 | 28,295 | 10.1% | 68 | 70 | 1,174 | ||||||
| 16 December 2020 | 689 | 5.9% | 38 | 49 | 1,031 | 18,644 | ||||||
You can also see the latest numbers laid out visually on the Travelling Tabby website here. It is updated at 3pm daily.
provide a Coronavirus (COVID-19) test and get a negative result during the 3 days before you travel
before departure for arrivals from Monday 15 February, book and pay for managed isolation in a quarantine hotel for at least 10 days from arrival. This applies to arrivals from all countries outside the CTA and includes British citizens. Book your managed isolation using this booking portal. If you are experiencing any difficulty booking through the booking portal, please ring +44 1274 726424.
complete an online passenger locator form before travelling, and provide contact details, travel details and the address of their final destination. You will need to enter the booking reference for your managed isolation package.
be tested on day of 2 and 8 during of your 10 day quarantine
follow the national rules on Coronavirus in Scotland
[/su_spoiler][su_spoiler class=”my-custom-spoiler” title=”Stay At Home Guidance”]
To minimise the risk of spreading the virus, you must stay at home as much as possible. By law, in a level 4 area, you can only leave your home (or garden) for an essential purpose.
There is a list of examples of reasonable excuses below. Although you can leave home for these purposes, you should stay as close to home as possible. Shop on-line or use local shops and services wherever you can. Travel no further than you need to reach to a safe, non-crowded place to exercise in a socially distanced way. To minimise the risk of spread of Coronavirus it is crucial that we all avoid unnecessary travel.
Examples of reasonable excuses to go out:
for work or an activity associated with seeking employment, or to provide voluntary or charitable services, but only where that cannot be done from your home.
for education including, school, college, university or other essential purposes connected with a course of study.
for essential shopping, including essential shopping for a vulnerable person. You should use online shopping or shops and other services in your immediate area wherever you can.
to obtain or deposit money, where it is not possible to do so from home.
for healthcare, including COVID-19 testing and vaccination.
for childcare or support services for parents or expectant parents.
for essential services, including services of a charitable or voluntary nature such as food banks, alcohol or drug support services.
to access public services where it is not possible to do so, including from home:
services provided to victims (such as victims of crime),
social-care services,
accessing day care centres,
services provided by the Department for Work and Pensions,
services provided to victims (including victims of crime),
asylum and immigration services and interviews,
waste or recycling services,
to provide care, assistance, support to or respite for a vulnerable person
to provide or receive emergency assistance.
to participate in or facilitate shared parenting.
to visit a person in an extended household.
to meet a legal obligation including satisfying bail conditions, to participate in legal proceedings, to comply with a court mandate in terms of sentence imposed or to register a birth.
for attendance at court including a remote jury centre, an inquiry, a children’s hearing, tribunal proceedings or to resolve a dispute via Alternative Dispute Resolution.
for essential animal welfare reasons, such as exercising or feeding a horse or going to a vet.
local outdoor recreation, sport or exercise, walking, cycling, golf, or running that starts and finishes at the same place (which can be up to 5 miles from the boundary of your local authority area) as long as you abide by the rules on meeting other households
to attend a marriage ceremony or registration of a civil partnership.
to attend a funeral or for compassionate reasons which relate to the end of a person’s life. This includes gatherings related to the scattering or interring of ashes, a stone setting ceremony and other similar commemorative events.
if you are a minister of religion or worship leader, for the purposes of leading an act of worship (broadcast or online), conducting a marriage or civil partnership ceremony or a funeral.
to donate blood.
for activities in connection with moving home (including viewing a property), or for activities in connection with the maintenance, purchase, sale, letting, or rental of residential property that the person owns or is otherwise responsible for. Travelling for the purposes of undertaking essential work on a property other than your main residence should not be used as a pretext for a holiday. You should not stay longer than for the length of time required to undertake the necessary work.
to avoid injury, illness or to escape a risk of harm.
for those involved in professional sports, for training, coaching or competing in an event.
to visit a person receiving treatment in a hospital, staying in a hospice or care home, or to accompany a person to a medical appointment.
to register or vote in a Scottish or UK Parliament, Local Government or overseas election or by-election, including on behalf of someone else by proxy
to visit a person detained in prison, young offenders institute, remand centre, secure accommodation or other place of detention.
[/su_spoiler][su_spoiler class=”my-custom-spoiler” title=”First Minister’s announcement 9 March 2021″]
From Friday, therefore, we intend to relax the law so that up to 4 adults from up to 2 households will be able to meet outdoors.
And, in addition, we will make clear in our guidance that this will allow for social and recreational purposes, as well as essential exercise.
Meeting will be possible in any outdoor space, including private gardens.
But please, do stick to the new rules. Gatherings must be a maximum of 4 people, from 2 households. And you should only go indoors if that is essential in order to reach a back garden, or to use a toilet.
And, for now, please stay as close to home as possible.
We hope to be in a position to relax – at least to some extent – travel restrictions within Scotland in the weeks ahead, but our advice is that it would not be safe to do so just yet.
For young people aged 12 to 17 we want to be even more flexible, to enable more interaction with friends.
So for 12 to 17 year olds, outdoor meetings will also be limited to a maximum of 4 people. But the 2 household limit won’t apply.
That means 4 friends from 4 different families will be able to get together outdoors.
And this will hopefully allow young people to see more of their friends than is currently the case.
We are also proposing some changes to the rules on outdoor exercise and activities.
From Friday, outdoor non-contact sports and organised group exercise will be permitted for all adults, in groups of up to 15 people.
We will also ensure that there is some flexibility around the travel rules for young people – so that children are not prevented from taking part in sport, if for example they belong to a club that is a bit outside their own local authority area.
These are minor changes I know that, but I do think they are important changes.
They have also been made possible by the hard sacrifices the majority of people across the country have made.
And we will seek to build on them as quickly as possible in the weeks ahead.
The other careful change that we feel able to make, at this stage, relates to places of worship.
I can confirm that, assuming no deterioration in the situation with the virus between now and then, we intend to allow communal worship to restart from Friday 26 March.
This is in time for Passover, Easter, Ramadan and Vaisakhi.
In addition, the limit on attendance at communal services will be increased from 20, which was the limit in place before lockdown, to 50 – assuming of course that a place of worship is spacious enough to accommodate that many people with 2 metre physical distancing.
Now I know that the restrictions on communal worship have been really difficult for many people, despite the exceptional, quite exceptional efforts made by faith groups to reach out to their communities.
This change is relatively minor, it is proportionate, which we believe can be achieved relatively safely, and which will hopefully enable more people to draw strength, comfort and inspiration from acts of collective worship.
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Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
