Public Health Scotland have released a new report that investigates the changes to the severity of Covid-19 and its impact on hospitals in Scotland. The report has found that the changing strains and variants are now causing less hospitalisations.
While this is to be expected following Scotland's continuous vaccine efforts, PHS has stressed that it must continue to gather data to inform future Covid-19 policy and decision making. This is because the different variants can require unique measures to limit the continued spread of the virus.
This comes as Covid cases begin to surge once again in Scotland, with a report last Friday saying one in 18 Scots were estimated to have had Covid in the week ending June 24. The Office For National Statistics (ONS) also estimated that around 288,200 people across the UK would test positive for Covid during that same week.
Dr Nick Phin, Director of Public Health Science at Public Health Scotland, said: "As the pandemic has progressed, COVID-19 has evolved and the dominant strains circulating around our communities have changed. In a similar way, our surveillance and data systems also need to continue to adapt and evolve.
“With every new variant, there are unique characteristics that we need to understand so that appropriate recommendations can be made and measures can be put in place to protect lives from the potential risks of the disease."
Some key points highlighted the report are as follows:
- During March to June of 2020, in deaths where there was a positive COVID-19 result, 94 percent were considered to be caused by the virus. From January to April 2022 this has decreased to 43 percent.
- Those admitted to the ICU with a clinical diagnosis of COVID-19 disease has declined from over 80 percent in the early phases of the pandemic to 29 percent since 01 January 2022.
- Emergency hospital admissions from those who acquired their Covid-19 infection in the community decreased from 78 percent in the week ending 07 November 2021, to 59 percent in the week ending 01 May 2022.
While the report says that some of the data gathering has been 'problematic' due to the way in which cases were counted in certain data sets, it appears that there has been a notable downward trend in hospital and ICU admissions in Scotland as well as Covid-19 related deaths.
Dr Phin says: “The analysis within this report shows that since the start of the year, the dominant strains of COVID-19 in Scotland began to have less of an impact on our hospitals in relation to admissions and deaths. However, it has highlighted the need to re-evaluate and invest in the most appropriate measures by which we gather information on the virus.
“It is hoped that the recommendations included in the report will help inform future approaches to COVID-19 reporting and surveillance so that our data continues to be ever more robust.”
You can read the full report by Public Health Scotland here.
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