Coronavirus / Coronavirus warnings made though cases remain static in the isles
WARNINGS have been issued for people “not to let their guard down” 100 days on from the imposition of coronavirus lockdown.
Announcing the latest figures on Covid-19, Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon urged people not to undermine the efforts of the previous 100 days in suppressing the virus.
Sturgeon said that the country was entering “a time of very real danger” as lockdown restrictions continue to be eased. She urged people to continue with social distancing and hygiene measures such as wearing masks where applicable and said society should not rush back to where it had been before the pandemic.
“We have to make sure the progress we have made in recent weeks is not lost, or worse still, reversed,” Sturgeon added.
NHS Shetland’s consultant in public health Dr Susan Laidlaw meanwhile categorically denied a rumour that there had been a new positive test in a care home. The number of officially recorded cases in the isles remains at 54.
She said that some people continued to test positive for the virus many weeks after first having tested positive.
But she said that they were unlikely to be infectious once their symptoms had disappeared.
She said: “Although most people clear the virus quickly, we now know that people can continue to test positive for many weeks if they have a prolonged illness, and others continue to test positive for many weeks even after they have fully recovered.
“This is probably due to virus fragments still being present and picked up on the swab.
“We don’t know why this happens in some people and not others. If someone continues to test positive after they have recovered from the illness and no longer have any symptoms, they are most likely not actually infectious.
“The test is only showing presence of the virus or viral fragments, it can’t show if someone is infectious so other criteria like presence of symptoms and how long they have been positive for has to be taken into account to assess if someone is infectious or not”.
Sturgeon announced that there had been 10 new positive tests throughout Scotland since yesterday, bringing the total to 18,251.
Sadly there had been three deaths after four days when no coronavirus related deaths had been recorded. The weekly total of nine deaths was a huge improvement on the situation at the peak of the pandemic.
Sturgeon warned that globally the virus was far from beaten and there had been a resurgence in other countries and areas, leading to re-imposed lockdown measures.
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