9,997 deaths have been registered in Scotland where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate up to 4 April 2021.

National Records for Scotland (NRS) state that due to the public holidays for Easter that:

Death registrations are likely to have been lower than the actual number of deaths that occurred in this week.

This means that it is likely that the actual toll for Covid related deaths in Scotland now tops 10,000.

The numbers of covid related deaths for rUK are:

• England: 128,303
• Scotland: 9,997
• Wales: 7,773
• Northern Ireland: 2,904

To put this in perspective, it works out as per 100,000 of the population:

• Wales: 246.5
• England: 227.9
• Scotland: 182
• Northern Ireland: 153.4

These are appalling statistics and it should never been forgotten that each one of these numbers is a person with a family and friends who have not been able to even grieve properly over the loss of a loved one.

In the USA where the dominant strain of Covid19 is now the highly infectious variant which originated in Kent, England,(known as the UK variant) the number of deaths is a staggering 573,011.

A report recently published about the 2020 virus in the USA recorded that 40,000 children in the States had lost a parent to covid. A quarter of those children were under 10.

This is one of the many long term effects this virus will have – the devastating social and economic consequences for families.

Vaccinations

Scaremongering about vaccination and the spread of misinformation is not helping.

Scotland

In Scotland, uptake of the vaccine has been very good, as of 8th of April 2021:

2,608,831 people have had their first dose of the vaccine – 57.4%

500,376 people have had the second dose – 11%

Two doses are required to give you the best protection against the worse effects of Covid.

Orkney

In Orkney 75.9% of adults have received their first dose with 11.4% the second.

In the USA of those 18 and over 42.4% have had the first dose and 24.9% the second dose.

In Scotland the vaccinations used are AstraZeneca and Pfizer with Moderna now coming into usage too.

Not every country is using the same vaccines. In the States currently there is the Pfizer , Moderna and J&J/Janssen. The J&J vaccine requires only 1 dose.

New Zealand

In previous Orkney News articles we have looked at how New Zealand has dealt with the pandemic. To date the total number of deaths in that country is 26.

New Zealand has vaccinated far fewer people so far but has secured enough vaccine to administer to its whole population and have also offered it to neighbouring islands.

Figures for vaccination in New Zealand are: 1st dose 71,013, second dose 19,273.

New Zealand approached the management of the pandemic differently. It went for suppression of the virus and is now gradually rolling out its vaccination programme. It has ordered supplies of vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Novavax and AstraZeneca.

New Zealand has 95 active cases of Covid19. All of the cases are of people who travelled to New Zealand and they are in managed border accommodation.

In comparison, on 8th of April, Scotland had 364 new cases, England 2,304 new cases, USA 61,258 new cases and Brazil 92,625 new cases.

The virus travels with people. New Zealand imposed very strict border controls right from the start of the pandemic and it continues to do so. In Scotland the current advice is to ‘Stay Local’ but there are plenty of examples of people simply ignoring that and travelling not just within Scotland but coming into the country from other parts of the UK.

The advice in Scotland is:

• stay local
• wear a face covering
• avoid crowded places
• clean hands and surfaces regularly
• stay 2m away from other people
• self-isolate and book a test if you have COVID-19 symptoms

And download the Free NHS Scotland contact tracing app: Protect Scotland

Reporter: Fiona Grahame