Covid in Scotland: Virus surveillance to continue

People in Scotland will be able to order free lateral flow test kits until 17 April

Covid surveillance will continue after Scotland removes free home testing, the national clinical director has said.

People can order PCR and lateral flow tests in Scotland until 17 April, a day before mask rules are expected to end.

Prof Jason Leitch said there would be a "transition" in how Scotland deals with Covid-19 once home testing ends.

Weekly reports from the UK-wide Office for National Statistics (ONS) surveys will continue to provide estimates of Covid rates to warn of risk levels.

The ONS survey will allow Public Health Scotland to issue infection alerts in the way it warns of flu rates.

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It provides data on the number of influenza and respiratory disease cases detected by NHS tests, the number of related NHS24 calls and vaccination numbers.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced on Wednesday that most mandatory face covering rules would remain in force until 18 April.

She said this was due to there still being a very high level of infection in Scotland, and because masks provided extra protection.

All of Scotland's other legal restrictions have already been phased out. The population-wide Covid contact tracing system will continue until the end of April.

Case numbers have hit record levels in Scotland in recent weeks, with one in 11 people estimated to have had the virus in the week to 20 March, but were thought to be stabilising.

Both Deputy First Minister John Swinney and Justice Secretary Keith Brown tested positive on Wednesday morning, just hours before Ms Sturgeon made her announcement.

'Scotland behaved really well'

Prof Leitch told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme there would be changes in how Scotland dealt with Covid-19 once home testing ended for most people in three weeks' time.

He said there would still be "quite a lot of testing" in healthcare settings, but home tests would only be available free to people in at-risk groups.

He said Scotland intended to protect people from Covid even after requirements for testing and self isolating ended.

'Most people are still keen to test'

Aberdeen pharmacist Fiona Arris says the Anderson & Spence pharmacy where she works has struggled to keep up with demand for tests, regulaly getting through a box of 50-60 a day.

She says the ending of free home test kits for most people has "come as a bit of a surprise to the general public".

"We were notified last week that we would no longer be receiving a general supply. We haven't had any supply for 10 days now, but the public have continued to come in and request the tests," she said.

"I would say a lot of them are scared, disappointed, concerned that they may pass on the virus to vulnerable and elderly relatives. I'd say most people are still keen to test."

"The legal requirement to do those things will go, but that's different to saying... the public health advice will be not to isolate," Prof Leitch said.

"They won't know for sure [that they have Covid] - that's going to be a real transition for us, because that's how we deal with norovirus and flu and colds and other diseases.

"Because we don't do home testing for sickness and diarrhoea we stay off work, and we know that we should stay off work for 48-hours after your symptoms."

Testing will continue in healthcare settings for treatment and for surveillance of respiratory diseases

He said that as Scotland currently had "massive numbers" of Covid, it was likely anyone with cold and flu symptoms had that virus.

"Over time that will change, as those numbers fall, and we'll still do surveillance testing so we'll know, the most likely disease you could catch, I hope, in July might be the common cold," he said.

"We're not getting rid of the ONS survey, we're not getting rid of treatment testing and we'll have surveillance in respiratory disease, like we have for flu."

The ONS does a weekly survey using PCR tests in people's homes across the UK.

Prof Leith added: "In Scotland self isolation has never been the law - the police were never going to come round and give you a fine for not self isolating.

"Scotland has behaved really, really well - and knows now how to deal with this disease, both from a protecting yourself perspective but also from a protecting others perspective."

From Friday, free testing in England will only be available for some groups, including NHS staff caring directly for patients, the UK government announced on Wednesday.