Coronavirus in Scotland: Sturgeon defends handling of Edinburgh outbreak

Nicola Sturgeon has insisted that "all appropriate steps were taken" over a coronavirus outbreak at a Nike conference in Edinburgh in February.

At least 25 people linked to the event on 26 and 27 February are thought to have contracted the virus.

But the public was not told despite health authorities knowing about the outbreak within days.

Ms Sturgeon said any suggestion of a cover-up was "complete and utter nonsense".

And she said information about the outbreak was not made public at the time because it would potentially have breached patient confidentiality guidelines by identifying some of those involved.

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Details of the outbreak at the conference in the Hilton Carlton Hotel were revealed by a BBC Disclosure documentary that was broadcast on Monday.

The investigation discovered that Covid-19 had been brought to Scotland a week before the country's first confirmed case, in Tayside, was revealed on 1 March.

One of the 70 Nike employees attending the conference from across the world brought the virus to Edinburgh and infected many of their fellow delegates, who then took it back to their own countries.

Of the 25 confirmed cases linked to the event, eight were residents of Scotland.

Health officials in Scotland learned on 2 March that someone who had attended the conference had tested positive when they returned to their home country.

A Scottish resident connected to the event tested positive the following day - but the public was not told that the cases were linked to the conference.

Mass gatherings were not banned until 16 March and lockdown measures were introduced on 23 March.

Facing questions from journalists at her daily briefing, the first minister said she was "satisfied then and I am satisfied now that all appropriate steps were taken".

Ms Sturgeon said suggestions of a cover-up were "highly politicised nonsense".

At least 25 people are known to have contracted the virus after the Nike event at a hotel in Edinburgh

She said it was "not the case" that the authorities had known about the potential outbreak while the conference was ongoing.

And she said all of the cases that were later confirmed were included at the time in the daily totals published by the government.

Ms Sturgeon said Health Protection Scotland had established an incident management team at the time, and full contact tracing was done for delegates who had tested positive for the virus.

She added: "Had there been more information about that event put into the public domain at that time, that would not have changed the steps that were taken to protect public health."

Ms Sturgeon said she had asked at the time whether more information should be made public, and had accepted the advice given to her by health experts that this would not have been appropriate for patient confidentiality reasons.

Nike said its employees had all now recovered after the Edinburgh outbreak

She said this was because identifying where people had contracted the virus could potentially have identified the patients concerned - especially when there were relatively few people at the event.

Dr Gregor Smith, the interim chief medical officer, told the briefing that he had not been involved in giving that advice, but said he could "understand entirely the reasons why it was given".

And Ms Sturgeon angrily dismissed suggestions of a cover-up, adding: "That is complete and utter nonsense.

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

"I don't know where that accusation comes from but it sounds like highly politicised nonsense."

'Not acceptable'

Scottish Labour MP Ian Murray said that Ms Sturgeon had "failed to come clean on this cover-up."

He added: "It is not acceptable to hide behind patient confidentiality. You don't need to identify people to take action on a pandemic outbreak, so the first minister has failed to explain why the public was not informed.

"It's not politicising anything to scrutinise the government on decisions being made on behalf of the public.

"I'm not prepared to reply to Edinburgh constituents who have contacted me about this to say they are 'politicising' the issue - I want to provide them with the answers they deserve about this cover-up, as well as answers about the pitiful level of testing."

Nike told the BBC it had instigated enhanced measures, including contact tracing and increased cleaning and disinfection processes in its stores and offices, after the outbreak at its Edinburgh conference, and said that all of its staff had now recovered.