A leading public health expert has predicted the UK "will see an autumn surge" as we head into winter.
Professor Devi Sridhar, who has been advising the Scottish Government throughout the pandemic, said she believes the surge is "inevitable", and that "children will be a part of it".
"I think it's inevitable that we will see an autumn surge, because the challenge now with Delta is that even if you're fully vaccinated, you can still contract Covid-19 and give it to others," Professor Sridhar told Channel 4 News.
"What we're likely to see is more people contracting the virus as we have more mixing and more indoor activities, but hopefully less serious illness and death that would weaken that link between cases and deaths.
READ MORE: Here are Scotland's hotspots as cases reach six-week high
"So I think the autumn surge is inevitable, and we will see children being part of that given they are the largest group who don't have any antiboy protection against this virus."
Scotland has today recorded its fifth day of Covid case totals of more than 3,000, and today's test positivity rate of 12.4% is the largest since July 5.
Professor Sridhar said she believes the UK is doing well with the vaccination programme, however there are still concerns from reports in areas like Israel where vaccines are said to be losing effectiveness.
"What we have to see is actually what the wave looks like," she continued. "The cases have gone up quite a lot, and the hospitalisations have stayed much lower than they have in the previous wave.
"So what we are seeing is a definite weakening.
"But what I think is a bit worrying though is when we look at Israel, which has been ahead of us, their hospitalisations are starting to track along cases, which they think reflects waning immunity from the vaccines, and that's what we want to avoid. But right now, I actually think we're doing decently well with the vaccines."
On Saturday, The Herald's health correspondent gave her analysis on the situation in Scotland, where cases are on the rise again.
Helen McArdle wrote: "Between July 17 and August 13, there were 565 Covid hospital admissions in Scotland in people who were fully vaccinated.
"If rates of influenza and other respiratory viruses (which are all currently at low or baseline levels for summer) spike, it wouldn’t take much for the NHS to lurch from pressure cooker to boiling point.
"We might have been in a better position were it not for the Delta variant."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel