SCOTLAND should be prepared to put in place targeted and localised responses to Covid-19 in order to most effectively quash any future spikes of the virus, leading public health experts have warned.
Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen, said as the Scottish Government looked towards rolling out its test, trace and isolate response, it was important for more precise data to be made available.
He claimed such data would allow increased testing in “hotspot” areas – perhaps in one town or village or streets within a city, isolating all who tested positive and tracing their contacts.
READ MORE: Covid-19: Why test and trace is seen as the key to ending lockdown
Other public health figures, including Edinburgh University professor Linda Bauld, claimed Scotland should consider adopting “local lockdowns”, which have been used in other countries. France has split its regions into red, orange and green zones as part of plans to lift the lockdown safely.
Both suggestions of localised approaches were backed by think tank Common Weal, which published a paper last month laying out costs of a comprehensive testing strategy that would allow Scotland to lift lockdown restrictions. Current restrictions remain in place until at least May 7.
Pennington told the Sunday National: “There is information on how many cases are in local authority or health board areas – but the data hasn’t come out in any finer detail, which I find very frustrating.
“Where are the hotspots? We know we have them in old folks’ homes and many have been named but I would also like to know, say, in Aberdeen are the cases evenly spread out across the town or are there parts of the city where there are more? You could target your contact tracing on those parts where the virus might still be very busy.
“That applies with even more force to places like the Highlands – are there cases in Wick but none in
Thurso for example? In Glasgow if there have been a lot of cases in these three or four streets then you could do a lot of testing in that area, self-isolate them and that would cut down the infection rate. You need to keep having frequent testing – maybe testing people on a weekly basis. Many of them would not really be ill.”
The spread of the virus has so far been uneven in Scotland. Greater Glasgow and Clyde has the highest incidence with 2939 confirmed cases in the health board area as of yesterday. It also has the highest incidence of deaths – 6.3 deaths per 10,000 of the population and a total of 741, according to the latest National Records of Scotland report.
The next highest are Lothian (2065), Lanarkshire (1436) and Tayside (1392) while Orkney has just seven and the Western Isles six.
Experts have claimed that lockdown restrictions, put in place in Scotland when there were fewer cases than there were in England, helped stop the spread across the country.
Professor Bauld claimed that while it had so far made sense to have a consistent approach, there may be a case to be made for localised lockdowns if outbreak spikes appeared weeks and months after the restrictions had been eased.
She said: “Other countries are already doing local lockdowns. The Indian government has designated red, green and orange areas. The approach here has been a four-nations one but once we get into phase two, if we can test, trace and isolate then there may be areas where it makes sense to have stricter measures.
“It’s not a palatable prospect to think that needs to be an active debate that we have.
“I know the Government isn’t talking like that but I am thinking not now, but if things started to deteriorate in the future.”
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said it was consistently updating the data it published. She added: “We are engaged in a significant expansion of testing capacity to support a test, trace, isolate approach and to expand surveillance, which will be a crucial part of any moves to lift the lockdown measures.”
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