Coronavirus: Aberdeen outbreak linked to hospitality officially over

Aberdeen

Aberdeen had a local lockdown for three weeks

The coronavirus outbreak which led to a local lockdown in Aberdeen has been declared officially over by health chiefs.

Bars, cafes and restaurants shut on 5 August after a spike in Covid-19 cases linked to the city's nightlife.

Restrictions were fully lifted last week after three weeks.

NHS Grampian said its incident management team had now concluded that the cluster linked to the city's hospitality sector had ended.

More than 260 cases were associated with the cluster. Any new cases are now not being linked.

'Really confident'

Chris Littlejohn, deputy director of Public Health at NHS Grampian, said: "One of the lessons for all of us was how quickly this developed. We've got really good real-time surveillance going on though, looking at every case that's been notified to us as having a positive test result.

"By phoning everybody with a positive test result and having conversations with them, people have really been helping us to understand what their movements are.

"We feel really confident that if we were to get another cluster like this we would be very quick to identify that and to work with everybody involved to get on top of it."

The opening up of the hospitality trade on Wednesday last week followed a five-mile restriction on travel ending on the Monday.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she was grateful to the people of Aberdeen for complying with the rules that had been put in place.

The local lockdown restrictions, which affected 228,000 people in Aberdeen, were:

  • bars, cafes, restaurants and pubs were closed

  • no travel for more than five miles for leisure or holidays

  • no travel to the city for leisure or to visit friends and family, even if you lived in Aberdeenshire

  • no indoor visits with other households

  • visiting suspended for most hospitals

A £1m support fund was set up for the city, with grants of up to £1,500 available for hospitality businesses.

FACTS

F - Face coverings. These should be used in shops and on public transport (buses, trains and taxis)

A - Avoid crowded places.

C - Clean your hands frequently, using water and soap whenever possible.

T - Two metres - observe physical distancing.

S - Self-isolate and book a test if you are suffering from COVID-19 symptoms.

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