Coronavirus Scotland: New Glasgow lockdown rules announced

New lockdown rules will be enforced in Glasgow from midnight tonight following a spike in coronavirus cases, Nicola Sturgeon announced.

Under the reinforced rules – which also apply to West Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire – residents are no longer allowed to meet up with other households.

Only emergency hospital visits are allowed in the affected areas and anyone visiting a loved one in a care home must do so outside.

The guidelines will be reviewed after a week but they are set to remain in place for 14 days in total. 

A further 154 people were diagnosed with coronavirus in Scotland today. There were no deaths reported north of the border.

Coronavirus cases yesterday hit a three-month high, forcing the Scottish First Minister to dub sound the alarm.

She said numbers were ‘undoubtedly a concern’ and she feels ‘a greater sense of anxiety today’ than at any time ‘probably for the last couple of months’.

On Monday, 160 new cases of Covid-19 were recorded in Scotland with Ms Sturgeon admitting Scotland is in a ‘fragile position’ after loosening lockdown rules.

It was the highest daily total of cases since May 16 and a significant increase on the 123 cases which were announced on Sunday.

Even with the spike in cases – Scotland took more steps out of lockdown on Monday, with the opening of gyms and indoor swimming pools and the resumption of youth groups such as Cubs and Brownies and mother and baby groups. 

The latest statistics bring the total number of cases since the start of the pandemic in Scotland to 20,632.

In other coronavirus developments today; 

• Millions of pupils in England are returning to school for the first time since March, as two new studies reveal children are six times less likely to spread the coronavirus than adults, and are more likely to die in an accident than of Covid-19;
• Most people who have been added to the free flu jab programme won’t get their jab until December despite the Government drive to widen the scheme to take the pressure of the NHS this winter;
• The World Health Organisation Europe director has warned schools reopening and flu season could mean a surge in Covid-19 patients will pile pressure back on hospitals this winter;
• Boris Johnson today warned there is going to be ‘more of this wretched Covid still to come’ as he convened his Cabinet and told ministers ‘bit by bit’ the UK is ‘getting back on its feet’; 
• AstraZeneca begins final trials of Oxford University coronavirus vaccine enrolling 50,000 people worldwide and 30,000 in the US as company signs £15million manufacturing deal.

Across the UK, three more Covid-19 deaths were recorded today, as the Health Secretary Matt Hancock says Britain must doing ‘everything in our power’ to avoid a second wave of hospitalisations caused by Covid-19 like the one emerging in Europe.

Mr Hancock, speaking to MPs in the House of Commons for the first time since Parliament’s summer break, said the country must remain vigilant about the threat of coronavirus even though deaths are tumbling in the UK.

He said case numbers are growing ‘exponentially’ in France and Spain and that the nations’ hospitals are also seeing rising numbers of patients again.

Meanwhile the numbers of people testing positive for the virus in the UK are rising and are now at the highest level since mid-June, following a lull in July and the start of August.

Today 1,295 cases were diagnosed after 1,406 people yesterday. The seven-day average number of daily cases is now 1,339 – a 27 per cent increase on last Tuesday and the highest since June 11.

While cases are rising in the UK, scientists have given an alternative view to Mr Hancock’s doom-and-gloom view, saying instead that younger people are the ones driving up infections and they are less likely to get seriously ill and end up in hospital. For that reason, hospital cases and deaths will not necessarily follow higher cases.

There are currently only 764 people in hospital with Covid-19 in the UK, just 60 of whom are in intensive care. This is a sharp drop from a peak of 19,872 hospitalised patients on April 12.

Despite the rising number of cases, no deaths have been recorded in almost a week, with the number of fatalities remaining at 2,494.

Speaking during her daily coronavirus briefing in Edinburgh, Ms Sturgeon yesterday said the ‘quite high’ numbers of new cases were ‘partly a result of greater numbers of people being tested’ and she stressed the proportion of people testing positive was still below one per cent.

But she added: ‘The number of cases we are seeing right now is a reminder to all of us the virus is still a very real risk, it is a development that concerns me and it is one we are taking very seriously.

‘We mustn’t lose sight of how important it is if we are to keep schools open, build economic recovery and retain a bit more normality in our lives that we do continue to suppress the virus and push as close to elimination of it as we possibly can.’

Ms Sturgeon said not all of Monday’s cases were linked to larger outbreaks, saying the rise of cases in Greater Glasgow and Clyde ‘seems to reflect a number of small clusters, rather than one or two more significant outbreaks’.