First Minister sounds the alarm over the 'considerable risk' presented by house parties

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has warned that the rate of Covid-19 reproduction (R-number) in the country could be rising amid a spate of virus clusters in Grampian, Orkney and Glasgow.

She began her briefing by telling the victims and their families of the train crash near Stonehaven yesterday saying that “the hearts of a nation are with them”.

Turning to coronavirus, Ms Sturgeon said an early estimate from last week showed that the R-number had risen as high as 1.3 and this could be put down to a large outbreak in Aberdeenshire where around 180 people are infected.

NHS Orkney is now investigating possible links to the Aberdeen cluster as the islands have close transport links with the city after nine people were found to have contracted the virus and three more were revealed by Ms Sturgeon today.

She also told the briefing that there were no new deaths from confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Scotland but there were 47 new cases with 26 of them occurring in the NHS Grampian area.

She also called on people to be responsible when it came to staging house parties which are difficult to police saying that revellers must use their judgment and stick by the rules which are not optional.

“I am pleased to say that no deaths were registered of patients who first tested positive over the previous 28 days so the number of deaths under that measurement remains 2491,” she said.

“We will publish our report on the R-number today – to remind people the R-number is the average number of people who will be infected by any other infectious person.

“The R-number does become less reliable as an indicator as the number of cases across the country decreases and that is reflected in the latest figures which widens the possible range of the R-number in Scotland.

“This week’s range includes the possibility that the R-number last week was above one, my information is at this stage the provisional won't be confirmed until later this afternoon but the upper estimate last week could have been as high as 1.3.

“This is possibly in large part due to the inclusion of the Aberdeen outbreak in some of the models that we consider and let me stress again when the prevalence across the country is low the R-number will be disproportionately affected by outbreaks.

“Currently an Orkney-based cluster is under investigation and an incident management team will meet in Orkney later today and this main include residents of other NHS board areas.

“All the work that should be done is being done in Orkney to contact trace everyone involved and make sure that they are self isolating. I would everyone on the islands to guard against complacency if you have what might be symptoms you should isolate immediately and make immediate arrangements to be tested.

“We are also investigating if this Orkney-based cluster is potentially linked to the Aberdeen cluster.

“I want today to express another concern and the basis for this concern is coming through the data now, just as a concern about hospitality is, and that is a concern about house parties.

“I want to stress these present a considerable risk. So please stick to the rules about and gatherings in no more than eight people from a maximum of three different households should be gathering indoors.”

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