Scotland still has highest Covid rate in the UK
- Published
More than 312,000 people were estimated to have had the virus in Scotland last week
Scotland is still believed to have the highest Covid rate in the UK after another increase in the number of people testing positive.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated that one in 17 people in Scotland tested positive for the virus last week.
This was a marginal increase from one in 18 the previous week.
The rate in England was one in 25 last week, while it was one in 20 in Wales and one in 19 in Northern Ireland.
The number of Covid cases recorded each week is increasing across the UK, likely driven by the new BA.4 and BA.5 variants of the Omicron strain.
They are not thought to be more deadly than any other form of Covid but they do appear to be spreading more quickly.
The ONS estimated that about 312,800 people had the virus in Scotland last week - the highest since early April.
This was up from 288,200 the previous week, and is the fifth week in a row that the number of people with the virus has increased.
But there are potential signs that the infection rate could be starting to plateau, with the rate at which the virus is spreading beginning to slow down.
The ONS data showed that the infections in Scotland have increased at a slower rate than in other UK nations over the past week, which experts hope could be an indication that they will soon begin to fall again.
Sarah Crofts, who works on the ONS's Covid-19 infection survey, said: "Scotland continues to have the highest infection rate, although it has recently increased at a slower rate compared to other UK countries.
"We will continue to monitor the data to see if this recent rise is starting to slow in Scotland."
The ONS stats are collated by testing thousands of people from UK households - whether or not they have symptoms - to estimate how much virus is around.
Meanwhile, Scotland's largest health board said it has 945 members of staff off work because of Covid.
In an email to all staff, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde's chief executive said the situation was exacerbated by people being off on holiday, and admitted that the health board was having to work with "less than optimal staffing levels".
There are currently 461 patients who have recently been diagnosed with Covid being treated in the health board's hospitals, with the number said to have grown significantly over the past fortnight.
But no planned appointments or surgeries are being cancelled at this point.
'Things will settle down'
The health board, which employs 38,000 staff, said a recruitment campaign was under way to boost numbers.
It said procedures were also in place to ensure any patient safety concerns are escalated and addressed, and frontline staff have access to mental health and peer support programmes.
Speaking earlier this week, Scottish government advisor Prof Linda Bauld said she believed the overall picture would improve in the coming weeks.
Prof Bauld said: "I think things will settle down. That's what we are seeing in Portugal.
"At the moment the main concern for a lot of people is just the sheer disruption of having lots of people off work, including actually in the NHS."
Separate figures released by the National Records of Scotland, external on Thursday showed that more than 15,015 people have now died with Covid since the pandemic began after a further 61 deaths were recorded last week.