ALMOST 19,000 Scots could be contracting coronavirus each day, according to the Scottish Government’s latest official estimates.
The latest weekly “Modelling the pandemic” paper put the number of new infections on October 14 at between 96 and 347 per 100,000 people.
This equates to between 5,200 and 18,900 cases per day, each of whom could then spread it to others.
The previous week, the estimate was between 35 and 176 new infections per 100,000, or between 1,900 and 9,600 people per day, showing a marked increase at the lower end of the estimates.
The R, or rate of transmission, number is currently estimated at between 1.3 and 1.6, meaning the virus is spreading rapidly.
The daily growth rate in infections is between 6 and 9 per cent, and the estimated doubling time for cases in Scotland is between 8 and 10 days.
It said: “The various groups which report to the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) use different sources of data in their models to produce estimates of incidence.
“SPI-M’s consensus view across these methods, as of 14 October, was that the incidence of new daily infections in Scotland was between 96 and 347 new infections per 100,000.
“This equates to between 5,200 and 18,900 people becoming infected each day in Scotland.”
However there was also more positive news, with a drop off in the number of people visiting different locations, particularly each others homes in recent weeks.
This was attributed to the rule of six and restrictions on household meetings having an effect “which it is hoped will feed through to confirmed cases over the next few weeks”.
It said: "There was a significant increase in contacts [between people] when the schools went back (from just below 6 to 8 per day).
"However, the number of contacts has fallen significantly in the last two weeks (down around 19%), and is now slightly lower than the level immediately before the schools returned.
"There has also been a drop off in how many people are visiting different locations, particularly other homes in recent weeks.
"This suggests the rule of six and restrictions on households meeting are having some effect."
On Thursday, Nicola Sturgeon announced another 1,351 people had tested positive in the previous 24 hours, representing 17.6% of those newly tested.
The number of people in hospital rose 31 to 601, and there 13 more deaths from Covid.
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 here