Covid Scotland: Infections hit new daily record as Sturgeon warns she 'cannot rule out' reimposing restrictions

Hosting the first Covid briefing since Scotland moved to Beyond Zero restrictions on August 9, Ms Sturgeon issued a plea to unvaccinated people who are eligible to come forward for jags.

"This remains the single most important thing we can all do to keep each other safe," she said.

Ms Sturgeon said the increase in cases over the past week was one of the sharpest at any point in the pandemic to date, adding that the 4,323 cases in the past 24 hours was the highest yet recorded.

The previous daily record, in early July, was 4,234.

"To some extent what we are seeing now is not entirely unexpected," said Ms Sturgeon, stressing that the majority of recent cases have been detected in younger people.

"That said, the scale is a real cause for concern."

Cases in Scotland are also rising much faster than the rest of the UK. 

In England, which lifted most measures - including mandatory face coverings - on July 19, cases have been rising since the end of July, but more slowly compared to Scotland. 

According to Public Health England, the average number of daily infections in England, based on reported date, has climbed by 16% from 23,130 on July 31 to 26,827 on August 20 - the most recent date for which figures are available. 

In contrast, between August 3 (when reported cases began rising in Scotland) and August 20, the average number of daily cases rocketed by 173%, from 1110 to 3025. 

In Northern Ireland, average daily cases have been rising since August 1 and were up by 49% by August 20, while in Wales they bottomed out on August 8 and had risen by 140% by August 20, according to PHE. 

Ms Sturgeon added that vaccines have "weakened but not completely broken" the link between infection and serious illness, and that should the surge in infections continue or accelerate with "evidence of a substantial increase in serious illness" over the coming weeks "we cannot completely rule out reimposing some restrictions".

She added: "If we did have to impose any restrictions, we'd judge what was appropriate at the time and try to be as limited and proportionate as possible."

Scottish Government data shows that cases in Scotland have doubled from 10,828 in week ending August 17, to 23,684 in week ending August 24.

The impact also appears to now be feeding into hospitals, with 354 people in hospital with Covid today compared to 312 on Friday.

Intensive care numbers are also up, from 34 to 43.

In England, cases - by date of reporting - have been climbing since July 31, but more slowly compared to Scotland, where schools have reopened

Most measures, such as physical distancing and capacity limits on venues such as pubs, cinemas, and football stadiums, ended in Scotland on August 9, with the country having moved to Level Zero three weeks prior.  

Asked why cases might be rising so much faster in Scotland than England, Ms Sturgeon referred to patterns earlier in the summer when the Delta variant seeded into Glasgow - Scotland's largest city - as opposed to comparatively smaller cities in England, as well as previous evidence of "lower population immunity" in Scotland than England. 

However, the most recent infection survey by the Office for National Statistics, indicated that as of the week ending July 29, the percentage of adults with Covid antibodies in the two nations were now very similar: 94.2% in England, and 93.5% in Scotland.   

The First Minister added that the later timing of the final lifting of restrictions in Scotland - on August 9 compared to England's July 19 'Freedom Day' - could also be at play, along with the earlier return of schools north of the Border. 

Ms Sturgeon said: "We are still, much more than England, in the impact phase of the August 9th lifting of restrictions - England did that three weeks prior to that and they saw a sharp increase then. They may have tailed off. 

"The other factor is the difference in schools. I wouldn't expect a full impact of our schools return to be in the figures yet, but I think we are probably starting to see a bit of an impact there. 

"It is all just down to the different timing of different factors. I suspect...we are going to see a similar pattern emerge in different parts of the UK, albeit at slightly different times."

Schools in England will resume in September. 

Scotland's chief medical officer, Dr Gregor Smith, added that Scotland was in a "catch up" phase. 

He said: "I think timing is everything here, particularly in relation to when people take their holidays and schools being either in place or out, and when restrictions were eased in each of these respective nations.

"At this moment in time what appears to be happening is we are in that catch up phase, particularly with England...they released a lot of the measures they had in place a good bit earlier than us and saw quite a rapid rise in cases at that point in time which has since begun to slow down.

"We'll continue to track our cases to see whether we get that same slowdown in the acceleration phase as well. 

"But there's no doubt about it, across the UK as a whole in each of the nations, we are seeing this steady rise in cases, largely confined to younger age groups under the age of 40 and not yet impacting in any serious way on hospital admissions, but it's something that we need to continue to track."

Nonetheless, the spike appears particularly pronounced in Scotland, possibly due to an overlap in restrictions easing and schools returning soon after.

In England, cases initially fell following Freedom Day, but - based on specimen date (the date a positive swab is submitted for testing) - began rising 10 days later on July 29. 

Between July 29 and August 5, average daily cases in England rose by 7.1%, before the increase slowed. 

In comparison, Scotland's cases were already rising by the August 9 'Beyond Zero' date and more than doubled in the 12 days following it, from a daily average (by specimen date) of 1,244 to 3,067 by August 21.

Graph by @TravellingTabby showing rapid increase in cases being driven by infections among 15 to 24 year olds in particular

National clinical director Jason Leitch described the recent surge as "startling".

Speaking on BBC's Good Morning Scotland, Prof Leitch said: "We used to talk about the doubling rate in the old days of Alpha, but now we have Delta, and Delta is really hard - you can see it round the world causing problems even in places that haven't had much virus like New Zealand, Australia, other parts of the Asia-Pacific. So we are concerned.

"It's principally young people, but not only young people, but a big percentage are under-40.

"That means the harm is not as significant, but people are still harmed by this virus - either the older people who get it or some small proportion of those younger people."