Nicola Sturgeon: Nike cover-up claim is ‘politicised nonsense’

The charge against the First Minister came after a BBC Scotland Disclosure investigation revealed more than 70 Nike employees had flown into Edinburgh from all over the world to attend a conference at the Hilton Carlton Hotel on February 26 and 27.

One delegate is thought to have passed on the virus.

Investigations have identified at least 25 people linked to the event who have contracted Covid-19. Eight of them are in Scotland.

The Nike event was a week before the first Scottish coronavirus case was confirmed in Tayside on March 1. That case was unconnected to the conference.

That led to Labour MP Ian Murray saying there was “a cover-up following the February outbreak”.

Asked about this claim, Sturgeon said all appropriate measures had been taken and the cases had been reported in the Scottish Government’s usual figures.

She said: “On the accusation of a cover-up, that is complete and utter nonsense.

“I don’t know where that accusation comes from but it sounds like highly politicised nonsense as well.”

Sturgeon said Health Protection Scotland set up an incident management team when the virus transmission became clear and contact tracing had been carried out.

She added: “I was satisfied then and I am satisfied now that all appropriate steps were taken.

“At the time I probed whether we should be putting more information into the public domain.

“The advice, which is advice I accepted, is that it was not appropriate.

“One of the reasons for that was patient confidentiality at a time when the number of cases remained as low as they were. To identify where any case contracted the virus could potentially have identified the patients concerned.”

She insisted that the Scottish Government was not aware of the outbreak while the Nike conference was taking place at the end of February.

“That is not the case,” she insisted.

The conference took place at the Hilton Carlton Hotel

READ MORE: Coronavirus spread in Scotland by Nike employees before first case announced

“The knowledge that there were cases associated with that event transpired when the cases associated with that event began to be confirmed and reported through the Scottish reporting system.

“All of the cases associated with the event and people in Scotland were reported through the normal daily figures that are still being reported now.”

“Why would we have been trying to cover anything up?” she added. “We were reporting figures on this. I stood up here every single day to be as open and transparent with you the public as possible.

“There is no interest in covering these things up, so that is nonsense.”

Murray said the cases raised “major questions” for the Scottish Government. He said: “Why was there a cover-up following the February outbreak, despite a clear risk to public health in Edinburgh?

“Why wasn’t lockdown introduced earlier, as was happening elsewhere, when the virus was spreading in our city?

“Why does testing for Covid-19 remain so pitifully low in Scotland, leaving us lagging well behind the rest of the UK?

“The findings of this explosive documentary deserve an immediate response from the First Minister. The buck stops with her.

“The bungling of this crisis by Boris Johnson and his team should not be a cover for the First Minister to absolve herself of proper scrutiny of her own government’s response to this crisis.”

Meanwhile, Sturgeon revealed that 1618 patients were in hospital with confirmed or suspected Covid-19, up 165 on the previous day.

The First Minister said the rise was being investigated and cautioned against any “undue concern”.

She said 1912 patients have now died, up 50 from 1862 on Monday.