The cumulative total of Covid cases in Orkney is now at 167 as another new positive test result was published today.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) is doing vital work monitoring waste water. That is a way of establishing if Covid is still within a community even if cases are low – it is only when people take a test that a case is recorded. Some people may have covid and just not realise it. That is why SEPA’s monitoring work is so important – another tool in the fight against this pandemic.

The stats for Scotland published on 12th of August 2021 are as follows:
- 1,525 new cases of COVID-19 reported
- 31,832 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results
- 5.2% of these were positive
- 8 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive
- 42 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
- 356 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
- 4,039,226 people have received the first dose of the Covid vaccination and 3,393,900 have received their second dose
People are reminded to:
- get the vaccine when you are offered it
- wear a face covering, clean hands and surfaces regularly
- self isolate and take a PCR test if you have symptoms
- take regular tests if you don’t have symptoms to reduce the risk of spreading the virus
- meet outside if you can, and open windows when indoors
- keep your distance from people not in your group
- work from home, or do a mixture of home and office working if possible
- use the Protect Scotland and Check-in Scotland apps

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Meanwhile… the ‘other’ Orkney newspaper scales down reporting local cases to once a week… I refrain from further comments (but I guess I have a pretty good idea about the potential driving forces for such unwise action).
In my opinion this is not helpful because it will only contribute to veiling the critical mass build-up which could well come back and haunt us in the coming months.
Not many people will proactively check the official government website for daily updates but simply listen to headline news whether these are on the radio, TV, in social media or local papers. So they won’t have much of an idea about regional infection rates, although this knowledge might be vital to guide their actions and behaviour.
Sometimes it is well worth looking across borders… for example in Israel, where despite high vaccination rates measures are being tightened and reporting has definitely not been scaled down… for very good reasons.
Personally, I find it saddening (and unwise) that the UK’s ‘no risk – no fun’ approch with an obvious acceptance of high infection rates somehow trickles through everywhere…