SCOTLAND’s early exit from Euro 2020 “did us some favours” with the country’s case rate “dramatically falling” in recent days.

Professor Jason Leitch, the Scottish Government’s National Clinical Director, told the BBC’s Today programme: “We had five out of the top 10 local authorities in the UK, now we have none in the top 150.”

He added: “We’ve now seen hospitalisations fall.

“Around 3% of positive people get admitted to hospital but they are now younger, relatively healthy and discharged quicker. But some stay, and we’ve had many deaths over the last few days.”

READ MORE: Scotland's early Euro 2020 exit behind new drop in cases, expert claims

Prof Leitch said the participation of fans in Euro 2020 had caused a spike in cases, but said it was “important to keep the football in perspective”.

“The Scotland-England game gave us a spike because of travel, not necessarily Wembley. Unfortunately, from a sporting perspective, Scotland went out far too early.

“But epidemiologically speaking, that probably did us some favours,” he said.

“We tested a lot of these fans and for a short time (cases) went from 1:1 male-female to 9:1 male-female. It has now returned to 1:1.”

Yesterday, the Scottish Government announced a further 1000 new coronavirus cases but no further deaths in the previous 24 hours, the latest figures show.

The death toll under the daily measure – of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days – remains at 7,859, although the Scottish Government noted that Register Offices are now generally closed at the weekend.

There were 475 people in hospital on Sunday with recently confirmed Covid-19, down from 480 the previous day, with 65 patients in intensive care, up one on the day before.

The daily test positivity rate was 8%, up from 7.5% the previous day, according to figures published by the Scottish Government on Monday.

So far, 3,998,627 people have received their first dose of a Covid vaccination and 3,092,102 have received their second dose.

READ MORE: Scotland football fans linked to nearly 2000 virus cases

Elsewhere, Professor Neil Ferguson from Imperial College London, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said it is still “too early to tell” what effect the unlocking of restrictions in England will have, and stressed that continued “caution” is needed.

Speaking on the same programme, Professor Ferguson said: “We won’t see for several more weeks what the effect of the unlocking is.

“We need to remain cautious, especially with the potential increase in contact rates again as the weather becomes less fine and schools return.

“We’re not completely out of the woods, but the equation has fundamentally changed. The effect of vaccines is hugely reducing the risk of hospitalisations and death. And I’m positive that by late September or October time we will be looking back at most of the pandemic.

“We will have Covid with us, we will still have people dying from Covid, but we’ll have put the bulk of the pandemic behind us.

“Clearly the higher we can get vaccination coverage, the better – that will protect people and reduce transmission – but there is going to be remaining uncertainty until the autumn.”