First Minister warns spread of Covid-19 is rising among older people

Coronavirus transmission among older groups is rising in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon has said.

Around a third of the 806 new cases in the past 24 hours were among the over-40s, the First Minister revealed.

The majority remain among the under-25s amid outbreaks at university accommodation.

Ms Sturgeon told the Scottish Government's coronavirus briefing: "The majority, the quite significant majority, are in the under-40 age groups, with the bulk of those in the under-25 age group.''

She warned this must not give rise to complacency as young people can become seriously unwell from the virus and while the risk of dying is lower for these ages, it is not non-existent''.

The First Minister said: "While we are seeing a significant number of cases in younger age groups, which is a phenomenon that we've seen across Europe in this latest surge of Covid, it is the case that transmission amongst older ages groups is also rising and let's not pretend that that is not the case.

"Around a third of today's cases are actually in the over-40 age group and there are a number in the over-60 age group, so transmission is rising across the spectrum of age ranges.''

She said to guard against transmission people with symptoms must self-isolate immediately and book a test.

Giving an update on daily coronavirus figures, she said 28,604 people have now tested positive in Scotland, up from 27,798 on Monday.

This is 11.5% of newly-tested individuals, up from 6.9% the previous day.

There were 302 cases in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, 180 in Lothian, 91 in Lanarkshire and 54 in Grampian.

Ms Sturgeon said the daily figure of new cases includes quite a high number of results'' from samples taken on Friday and Saturday which may have been expected to be reported on Monday.

No new deaths of patients who first tested positive for the virus in the previous 28 days have been recorded, with this total remaining at 2,511.

There are 123 people in hospital confirmed to have the virus, up by one in 24 hours. Of these patients, 14 were in intensive care, down by two.

Her comments follow Professor Sir Harry Burns, a former chief medical officer of Scotland, saying Covid-19 could be back under control in the coming weeks if rules put in place are followed.

He urged people to follow new restrictions put in place last week including the ban on household visits and 10pm hospitality curfew, as well as maintaining compliance with hygiene measures which have been in place since the start of the pandemic.

Sir Harry said: "Within the next two to three weeks we should see things settling down, so long as people are observing the rules.

"What we have learned up until now is that if people self-isolate when they're required to, if they use face coverings, hand washing and so on, it suppresses the prevalence of the virus in the community.

"So, the quicker that people learn to do that and stick with it, we will see things coming down within two to three weeks.''

The former chief medical officer also said students would "hopefully learn a lesson'' from the spikes being seen in halls of residence since the start of the academic year.

He said: "We should work hard to get on top of these outbreaks. I think the students involved in the big outbreaks will hopefully have learned a lesson about the need for social distancing and so on.''

Sir Harry agreed with Universities Scotland director Alistair Sim, who was also on the programme, that students should remain in halls of residence whenever possible.

He said: "It's a balance that needs to be struck, a balance of harms - the harm of Covid-19 or the harm of disruption to your education and so on.''

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