WATCH: Public of the North East assured systems for tracing cases of Covid variant are working 'very well'
Jillian Evans from NHS Grampian says the systems in place to prevent public transmission appear to have worked successfully, and efforts were aided by low levels of cases in the region.
Last updated 1st Mar 2021
The public in the North East are being assured today that systems in place to prevent community transmission Of Covid are working well in the region.
It comes after it emerged three cases of the Brazilian variant of the virus, which is believed to be more transmissible entered the area.
Vaccines are believed to still be effective on this variant, but not by as much as other variants more prominent in the UK.
NHS Grampian's Jillian Evans has been telling Northsound that the public shouldn't panic.
"They entered self-isolation for the required period of time immediately upon arrival in Scotland" she said of the three cases.
"They were contacted by contact tracers and had all the necessary support they needed, plus the history that we needed to follow up their close contacts."
Evans continued by describing the extra efforts taken on this occasion.
She said:
"We are following up contacts of contacts, so these are people who were in contact with the three individuals, who then may also of had contacts themselves."
"That's an extra safety measure, we wouldn't normally do that, but we are doing it in this situation just to make sure we are covering absolutely all of the bases."
Evans told Northsound that the relatively low level of Covid cases in the North-East mean resources are available to take these extra steps.
"They are not overwhelmed with cases at the moment, so they have extra time to focus effort on this at the moment."