SCOTLAND’s national clinical director has warned the new variant of Covid-19 could cause “big trouble” north of the border as he insisted people should not be meeting at Christmas “just to have a party”.
Professor Jason Leitch told BBC Breakfast that Christmas bubbles should be used to “help with social isolation and caring” but not “just for Christmas, just for a party, just so they can see people who they’ve missed”.
“I will not be seeing my 80-year-old parents on Christmas Day for the first time in my whole life,” he said.
“But I want to have another 15 Christmases with them, that’s why.
“So it’s important people make that choice for themselves.”
He said “Scotland’s numbers are lower” but preventative action against the new strain of coronavirus was still necessary.
Severe lockdown restrictions have been announced north of the border for December and January.
Indoor mixing will only be allowed on Christmas Day and most of Scotland will be put into the highest level of lockdown from Boxing Day.
READ MORE: Coronavirus Scotland: What are the new Covid Christmas rules in Scotland?
A “strict travel ban” has been maintained between Scotland and the rest of the UK over the festive period – including Christmas Day.
Mr Leitch said he is “pretty confident” the Covid-19 vaccine will work on the new variant of the virus.
The vaccine and treatments will work against the strain, he said, but the rate at which it transmits is worrying.
He said: “We are pretty confident from first principles, looking at it down a microscope for lack of a better description, that the vaccine will work but we need to prove that.”
The new variant of the virus will have to be grown at the Porton Down laboratory in Wiltshire, he said, and then be attacked by antibodies to see if it can be killed.
READ MORE: Coronavirus: Strict new Covid rules brought in for Christmas in Scotland
He said virologists are pretty confident that what has been seen so far “doesn’t worry them”.
Mr Leitch added that the R number, the reproduction rate, of the new strain is higher.
He said: “We don’t know this for sure but we think the R number for this version is 0.4 more than the R number for the other one if you just let it run wild.
“So imagine you have an R number right now of 0.9 – you think you are doing well, numbers are falling, everybody is transmitting to fewer than one other person, you are on the right path, then you get this dominant strain and your R number overnight goes to 1.3 and you get exponential growth and you are in big trouble.”
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