Soaring rates of infection in Scotland and across the UK has resulted in the Scottish Government introducing tougher restrictions. This includes Schools remaining closed to all except key workers until 1st of February.

Orkney is to remain in Level 3 and mainland Scotland in Level 4 but with increased limitations and which activities can take place.

A more infectious version of Covid19 which spread from the south of England has caused alarm and resulted in public health to change the interval of the first dose of the vaccine from 3 weeks to 3 months. This is to vaccinate at a faster rate than before and will give recipients some level of protection. The fear is that the rate of transmission is climbing so fast that NHS services will be overwhelmed as hospital admissions rise.

The percentage of cases composed of this new variant is increasing rapidly in Scotland, from 42.7% on 31st Dec to 47.5% on 3rd January. Cabinet paper state of the epidemic in Scotland

Orkney is the only area of Scotland with no new cases up to the week of 1st January 2021.

Here are the stats for Scotland for 4th of January 2021

• 1,905 new cases of COVID-19 reported
• 13,810 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results – 15.0% of these were positive

The free NHS Scotland tracing app is also an effective tool to support contact tracing. Click on this link here to access it: Protect Scotland

And of course the best way to limit the transmission of the virus is to remember FACTS.