HALF of Scotland's acute hospital beds could be taken up by patients with Covid before Easter, according to Scottish Government modelling.
Projections drawn up by epidemiologists show that behavioural changes could see the number of Covid positive patients in hospital in Scotland soar close to 7000 by April 11.
There are roughly 14,000 staffed acute beds across NHS Scotland.
Even central projections model an increase in bed occupancy by Covid patients to between 3000 to 4000 within two weeks.
Hospitals are already under severe strain with 2,326 currently in hospital with the virus.
NHS Lanarkshire warned patients against attending A&E unless it is "urgent or life-threatening".
Dr Jane Burns, NHS Lanarkshire’s executive medical director, said all three acute sites at Wishaw, Monklands and Hairmyres "are beyond full with capacity regularly over 100 per cent".
She added: "This has been the case for a number of weeks and the situation is not easing".
Pressure now looks set to worsen after the latest surveillance by the Office for National Statistics found that one in 11 people in Scotland had Covid last week - up from one in 14 the previous week, and the highest prevalence ever recorded for any of the four UK nations.
#COVID19 infections continued to increase across England, Wales and Scotland in the most recent week, but decreased in Northern Ireland.
— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) March 25, 2022
These high infection levels are driven by the Omicron BA.2 variant https://t.co/zjZZxROXBX pic.twitter.com/C6Sjbi6IxM
It compares to one in 16 in England and Wales, and one in 17 in Northern Ireland - the only part of the UK to see a decrease in the past week.
Professor Devi Sridhar, a Scottish Government Covid adviser and chair of global public health at Edinburgh University, said governments were facing "an impossible situation...given how transmissible Covid has become over two years".
"Even those who are super cautious are getting infected," she added.
The current wave is being driven by the super-transmissible BA.2 sublineage of Omicron.
Rules requiring facemasks to be worn in shops, public transport and hospitality in Scotland have been extended until early April, but universal access to lateral flow tests is due to end from Easter Monday on April 18.
The latest Modelling the Epidemic report projects that infections could peak in early April, with a knock-on impact for hospitals continuing for several weeks.
The modelling, which is based on data up to March 21, does not account for the rollout of fourth vaccine doses to over-75s but does adjust for factors such as waning immunity, age, vaccination status, and how behaviour across the population could influence virus transmission.
It projects anything from nearly 7000 to just over 2000 patients in hospital with Covid by April 11 in worse and better scenarios.
The report states: "The changes to restrictions are assumed to result in people’s behaviour gradually returning towards pre-pandemic levels over the coming weeks and months, as the impact of this becomes clearer we will revise the modelling...Changes in transmissibility represent changes in behaviour.
"The lower transmissibility in ‘Better’ assumes people behave more cautiously than they do at the moment, while the higher transmissibility in ‘Worse’ assumes people behave less cautiously."
The report notes that "the future trajectory of infections is uncertain".
Wastewater surveillance of the virus shows that, Scotland-wide, virus levels continued to increase "albeit at a slower rate than in recent weeks".
However, there is also "substantial variation in geographical risk of infection when considering the average recorded census age and booster vaccination uptake", suggesting some postcodes are still susceptible to outbreaks affecting un-boosted older Scots.
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