Coronavirus in Scotland: 3,400 NHS staff tested so far - as UK Government considers plan for 'immunity passports'

However it is not clear how many of the tests came back negative, allowing staff members to return to work.

Earlier in the week Ms Sturgeon said that six per cent of NHS Scotland staff - equivalent to around 9,800 people - were currently absent due to possible symptoms or self-isolating because someone else in their house was showing signs of infection.

READ MORE: 'Snub' row over naming of Glasgow's coronavirus field hospital 

The figures suggest Scotland is exceeding testing rates for NHS staff in England after Downing Street said on Wednesday that 2000 people had been tested from a frontline workforce of 550,000.

It came as UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said total testing capacity would be ramped up to 100,000 by the end of the month, including antibody blood tests that are not yet available, as extra testing facilities are developed alongside NHS sites.

The UK Government is looking into developing “immunity passports” to certify and help those who have had and recovered from the virus.

Earlier, Sir Paul Nurse, the chief executive of the Francis Crick Institute, whose laboratory has been repurposed for Covid-19 testing compared the situation to Dunkirk.

“We are a lot of little boats and the little boats can be effective.”

Scotland expanded testing to include NHS staff in mid-March amid criticism from medical leaders that in the midst of a major public health emergency workers were being forced to stay home as soon as they developed a cough or fever, even though it might not be Covid-19.

Priority is given to testing family members or flatmates of health and social care workers as under these circumstances the employee would have to self-isolate for 14 days as a precaution, instead of seven if they personally were showing symptoms.

Ms Sturgeon stressed that the testing itself did not automatically restore the lost workforce, however.

She said: “While testing of key workers and their families is important, in many cases testing will simply confirm that an individual does have coronavirus.

“So while we will continue to expand testing and expand key worker testing, that does not in and of itself mean staff will be able to return to the workforce.

“In the coming weeks as the virus continues to develop it will become much more likely that a person with symptoms has Covid than they do not have the virus.”

It comes as the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in Scotland rose by nearly 300, to 2,602.

READ MORE: Testing on track to hit 3,500 by end of April - but peak could already be over 

An additional 50 deaths were confirmed in patients who have tested positive for the virus, taking the total to 126, although 40 were cases where reporting had been delayed.

Ms Sturgeon confirmed that the system for reporting Covid-19 deaths will change from notification by individual health boards, to death certificates lodged

with National Records of Scotland where Covid-19 is mentioned.

Ms Sturgeon said this would help to ensure the data was as “robust, up to date and comprehensive as possible”.

From next week, Health Protection Scotland will also issue more detailed breakdowns on the demographic profile of those who have succumbed to the virus.

The First Minister stressed that lockdown measures were unlikely to be lifted in the near future, but reiterated the Scottish Government’s commitment to expanding testing capacity.

On Wednesday night, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that ramping up testing across the UK was “how we will unlock the coronavirus puzzle”.

“This is how we will defeat it in the end,” he said.

Until a vaccine becomes available or an effective antiviral treatment is discovered, countries coming out of lockdown will have to rely on on a mix of social distancing and containment.

A large testing capacity is vital to detect as many positive cases as possible, isolate them and trace their contacts.

This was the strategy pursued in Scotland and the rest of the UK initially when infection levels were low, but was abandoned after evidence of widespread community transmission emerged.

READ MORE: Early lockdown means Scotland's death rate from coronavirus should be lower than rest of UK

However, Scotland’s daily testing capacity is expected to rise to 3,500 by the end of April - up from 390 at the very beginning of the outbreak.

Ms Sturgeon said the Scottish Government is also actively looking at ways to expand testing to non-NHS laboratories.

A private coronavirus testing laboratory is due to become operational in Glasgow within two weeks as part of a UK Government investment.

Ms Sturgeon said NHS National Services Scotland had focused expansion on NHS sites first but is “engaging as a priority with external labs which are best placed to meet these criteria more quickly”.

“We need to be sure that testing is done in a way that is both safe and meets quality standards so that we can be confident of the results.”

False negatives or positives would be disastrous in the battle to contain Covid-19.

Ms Sturgeon has said she is hopeful that there will be a slowdown in new cases within two to three weeks, but the lockdown is still expected to last 13 weeks until early June.

“This unfortunately is not a quick fix,” she said. “We all want this phase of our lives to be over, but as much as I’d like to say otherwise it is unlikely that this will be in just a few weeks.

“We are in this for the long haul. Hopefully as we gather more hard data on how the virus is spreading and what impact these lockdown measures are having we will be able to be more precise about when and how we start to get back to normal.”

Dr Catherine Calderwood Scotland’s chief medical officer, said the scientific evidence showed that following “stringent” restrictions on social distancing does curtail the infection.

“We would be able to lift some of the measures, potentially, after than three month period if people are complying,” said Dr Calderwood.

“If we’re able to see that the viral spread is slowing, the number of people seriously unwell and the number of people dying will reduce.”

There was also updated guidance on personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks, goggles and aprons for healthcare staff.

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said 40 million units had been distributed to acute hospitals in March to protect staff from exposure to the virus, with a further 8.8m to primary care and 4.2million to the social care sector.

In spite of this there has been repeated complaints of shortages, including a case of a radiography department in Scotland with no PPE supply where 16 out of 20 staff ended up off sick due to possible virus symptoms.

GPs have also complained of receiving “flimsy” plastic masks, and having better quality masks and goggles donated by local building sites instead.

The new guidance grades the PPE requirements for acute hospitals through to primary care, paramedics and pharmacy. Ms Freeman said it would be up to organisations to carry out their own risk assessments to ensure they are complying with requirements.

The guidance also says masks and goggles do not always have to be changed between patients.

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