GLASGOW will stay in level 3 for another week, while Moray will move to level 2, Nicola Sturgeon has announced.
The First Minister gave the update during a Covid-19 briefing in St Andrew's House in Edinburgh, and said that East Renfrewshire, where cases are also rising, will stay in level 2 for now.
In Glasgow, the number of cases have now risen to 112 per 100,000 people of the population. As it is suspected that this is being driven by the Indian variant of the virus (which Sturgeon termed the April-02 variant) the city will be kept in level 3 for at least another week.
East Renfrewshire, where the number of cases per 100,000 is actually slightly above Glasgow but there is a smaller population and identifiable "household clusters", will stay in level 2. However, this will be kept under "close review".
On Moray, Sturgeon said: "I’m very pleased to say the situation in Moray has actually improved very significantly, last week the area was reporting 98 cases per 100,000 of the population, that’s now fallen to 37.
"Test positivity has also fallen quite markedly from 2.8% a week ago to 1.3% now. The April-02 variant does not seem to be as commonly present in Moray as it in Glasgow and indeed some other parts of the country.
"So I’m able to confirm that Moray will move down from level 3 to level 2 and this decision will take effect from midnight tonight."
In Glasgow, the First Minister said that not enough progress had been made to move the city safely down to level 2, as there are concerns that the April-02 variant of Covid-19 is enhancing the spread.
Sturgeon said: "Now, despite all of the efforts that have been made in last 10 days, cases are still rising in Glasgow and we are fairly certain that the increase is being driven by the April-02 variant.
"Last week just to give you some context, we were seeing 71 new cases for every 100,000 of the population, that’s now risen as of this moment in time to 112.
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"Now that increase will be partly due to the fact that there is more testing being done, but the percentage of positive test has also increased over the past week from 3.1% to 4%.
"So in summary, we don’t think that we have turned the corner in Glasgow yet.
"Let me stress though we are confident a major public health intervention under way will be effective and they will bring rates of the virus back under control, but our judgement is we need a bit longer to do that.
"We also think we need a bit more time to be more confident than we are just now that vaccination will stop the rising case numbers today becoming sharply rising hospital and severe illness numbers a couple of weeks from now.
"For all these reasons I can confirm today regrettably that Glasgow will remain in level 3 for a week at this stage. I know, not least because I live in Glasgow myself, how unwelcome this is for individuals and businesses, but I genuinely hope it will not be for too much longer."
Meanwhile, East Renfrewshire, where there are 118 cases per 100,000 people, will remain in level 2 under "close review" if the numbers start to rise.
The First Minister added that the population size in East Renfrewshire is smaller, and the cases there can be linked to "specific household clusters" while in Glasgow transmission is much more widspread.
She said: "To illustrate that there were just 17 new cases reported in East Renfrewshire, compared to 166 in Glasgow. More importantly, many more of the cases that have been reported in the last week in East Renfrewshire can be traced to specific household clusters, than is the case in Glasgow where transmission is much more widespread.
"That means that we think strongly targeted public health measures have more of a chance at this stage of stemming the rise without the need to use wider restrictions, so taking that into account and our judgement, these decisions are all finely balanced, but our judgement at the moment is that East Renfrewshire should stay at level 2 for now, although this will be kept under close review."
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