WHICH level or tier on the zero-to-four scale each of Scotland’s 32 council areas will be put on from next Monday depends on several factors.
These were set out in a paper published by the Scottish Government yesterday, with scientists, health officials and minister examining the data closely in the coming days.
They will also weigh up factors like the age and health of an area’s population, what level of hospital service and capacity it has, as well as levels of deprivation and typical household size before making deciding on the levels to give each across all parts of the country. There are five critical indicators, listed A to E:
A) Weekly new positive cases per 100,000 people: this indicator is defined as the number of people with a first positive test result, measured over a week, relative to population size
B) Percentage of tests that are positive over the past week: this indicator is defined as the seven day average of the number of positive tests divided by all tests carried out over the past week.
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C) Forecast weekly cases per 100,000 people: this indicator is based on Imperial College local authority-based modelling of number of positive tests, relative to population size.
D) Forecast hospital demand: this indicator is defined as the six-week-ahead forecast of hospital demand, relative to capacity, by health board. The paper says it is important to account for areas where there is a significant risk of exceeding hospital capacity.
E) Forecast intensive care unit demand: this indicator is defined as the five-week-ahead forecast of ICU demand, relative to capacity, by health board. The paper states this indicator is important to account for areas where there is a significant risk of exceeding ICU capacity.
The paper says no decisions have yet been made: “Decisions will be made by Scottish ministers ... and implemented through regulations. It is important to note the level appropriate for a given area at a given time may not be the same as the signal given by the indicators. Wider considerations apply, including the prevalence of infection elsewhere, including in neighbouring areas, trends in the data and the effectiveness of public health measures.”
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