Public Health Scotland tells people to cancel Christmas parties

Public Health Scotland tells people to cancel Christmas parties

Dr Nick Phin, of Public Health Scotland, has today, Thursday, December 9, told Scots that they should look at cancelling any Christmas parties they may have planned. The director of public health science and medical director, made this plea amid a rise in cases of the Omicron variant north of the border.

Between November 1 and December 8, 108 cases were reportedly registered in Scotland of this new strain. According to data, they claim that almost 50 per cent of these cases are in the age group of 20 to 39 years.

“To help minimise the further spread of Covid-19, and Omicron in particular, I would strongly urge people to defer their Christmas parties to another time”, pleaded Dr Phin.

He continued, “There is much that we still need to learn about Omicron, but early evidence suggests that this new Covid variant is much more transmissible. The impact of this transmissibility has been seen in recent weeks, with a number of Omicron outbreaks linked to parties”.

Adding, “We still need to learn more about the severity of disease caused by Omicron and the effectiveness of vaccines, but there are important things that we can do to help protect ourselves and our families now. I appreciate that everyone is keen to celebrate this festive season, particularly after the pressures of the last 20 months, but by postponing some plans we can all do our bit to protect ourselves and our loved ones”.

Figures revealed by the Scottish government show 3,196 cases in the last 24 hours, with 16 deaths. As a result, this means that to date, there have been 9,688 coronavirus deaths in Scotland among people who tested positive within the previous 28 days, as reported by dailymail.co.uk.

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