There were no new cases of Covid recorded in Orkney again today, 30th of July. Whilst this is good news, caution needs to be observed as the excellent work SEPA is doing monitoring waste water is registering a ‘positive’ record for Orkney.

You can find out more about that data here: RNA Monitoring

The stats for Scotland published on 30th of July 2021 are as follows:

• 1,456 new cases of COVID-19 reported
• 25,990 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results
  • 6.2% of these were positive
• 6 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive
• 60 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 474 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 4,007,577 people have received the first dose of the Covid vaccination and 3,162,662 have received their second dose

Vaccination uptake in Orkney has been excellent with 16,865 (91.7%) of those aged 18 years and over have received the first dose and 15,285 (83.1%) fully vaccinated.

Whilst this is really encouraging, there are people who are too young for the vaccine or who may have a medical condition preventing them from getting a jag. From the waste water monitoring this highly infectious and life changing virus is still very much present in our community.

Since the start of the outbreak:

• 7,930 people have died who have tested positive as at 30 July
• 10,324 ​​​​​​deaths have been registered in Scotland where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate up to 25 July
• 32% of COVID-19 registered deaths related to deaths in care homes, 61% were in hospitals and 7% were at home or non-institutional settings (as at 25 July)

And many more people are suffering the effects of long covid – including younger people.

People are asked to continue to

• get the vaccine when you are offered it
• wear a face covering, clean hands and surfaces regularly
• avoid crowded places and stay 1m away from other people
• meet outside if you can, and open windows when indoors
• if you have symptoms get a test and stay at home
• take regular tests if you don’t have symptoms to reduce the risk of spreading the virus
• use the Protect Scotland and Check-in Scotland apps

The apps are free to download and are an extremely important tool in battling this dreadful virus, especially as people travel around more and meet up in groups.