Covid 19

Confirmed cases

Scotland 14,594 : Lothian 2,568

Deaths

UK 35,704 : Scotland 2,105 

The Scottish figure includes 7 Healthcare workers and 9 Social Care workers.

The temporary mortuary facility at Mortonhall has been decommissioned but can be set up again within 72 hours if necessary.

Care Homes

484 (45%) of adult care homes currently have a case with 638 (59%) homes lodging a notice of Covid 19 in the home since lockdown. There have been 5,363 cases in care homes to date.

3,121 staff are absent in care homes due to Covid 19.

A critical analysis of why these figures are high can be found here:

The Predictable Crisis – Why Covid-19 has hit Scotland’s Care Homes so hard

Testing
Scotland 92,594 tested with 14,751 positive

Norway have tested 219,984
Denmark have tested 388,702

Business Support

At 15 May 6,200 applications have been processed with £77.4m paid out in business support from UK Government funds provided to Holyrood for use by councils. Criteria continue to change as different situations are taken into account. More information can be found here:

https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/coronavirus-4/businesses-employers

Do check to see if you qualify and for those that are self employed I have been told that this has been a lot easier to navigate:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-a-grant-through-the-coronavirus-covid-19-self-employment-income-support-scheme

You can help your community by buying locally and respecting the key workers who are helping you with your purchase. Distance measures are part of the strategy in keeping infection rates low.

Workers rights

Although this quite some time away for most, do ensure that you know your rights before any return to work. Here is a link to information which you may find useful. For those that are not members of a union I would recommend joining as your first line of defence in the workplace against Coronavirus:

https://labourunions.org.uk/covid-19-member-support-guidance

Guidance and Advice

Please support your Council and your Governments by adhering to the advice they offer. This is helping in the fight against Coronavirus. You can find more information here:

https://www.nhsinform.scot/coronavirus

Schools

Here is a report from the BMA which urges caution over the return to schools. This is highly relevant with France reporting this week that 7 of the schools that reopened there have closed again as 70 new cases of Covid were found.

https://www.bma.org.uk/news-and-opinion/covid-19-statement-on-schools-reopening

Keep safe and keep well

Cllr Gordon Munro