Covid-19 cases in Borders up by 45 over last week

Five new cases were announced today, September 23, taking the cumulative total for the region since the virus, also known as Covid-19, arrived here in March to 478.

That’s up by 123 over the last month from 355 on Monday, August 24.

The running total of cases here stood at 350 from August 13 to August 21, but that latter date marked the end of a nine-day run without any further diagnoses of Covid-19, and rises of up to 14 have been reported daily since then except on Tuesday this week.

Last week alone saw 50 new cases confirmed here, up from 415 on Monday, September 14, to 465 on Sunday, September 20, with a further 13 following since.

Last Friday’s increase of 14 cases, from 433 to 447, was the biggest jump overnight reported here – excluding an upsurge of 18 from 327 to 345 on June 15 attributable to figures from UK Government mobile testing units, regional testing centres and home self-testing kits being added to NHS Scotland laboratory results – since one of 30, from 110 to 130, on April 5, and it was followed on Saturday by a rise of 13, from 447 to 460.

The virus hasn’t added to the death toll it’s claimed here over the last week, however.

According to figures issued by the National Records of Scotland today, the number of fatalities linked to the disease in the region remains at 75, as of Sunday, after going up by one the Sunday before, September 13, having previously remained static at 74 since Sunday, July 12.

Those fatalities, taking into account all deaths linked to coronavirus, not just among those previously tested and found to be infected, are among 4,247 nationwide measured by those criteria.

Nationwide, 25,495 people have tested positive for the disease, up 486 overnight.

It’s now nearing seven months since Scotland’s first official diagnosis of the disease was announced on Sunday, March 1, after spreading across the world from China, with the first two cases here following on Wednesday, March 11.

Giving her daily update on the outbreak in Edinburgh today, a day after issuing new rules expected to be in force for months to come, Scottish Government first minister Nicola Sturgeon said: “The new restrictions taking effect this week are tough, but they are not a full-scale lockdown. It is important to remember that.

“They are designed to try to avoid a lockdown of the type we had earlier in the year.

“We hope that by all of us abiding by these restrictions and helping to get Covid under control again, we will be able to keep schools open, we will be able to get non-Covid NHS services up and running again, protect care homes and safeguard jobs and livelihoods.

“These are the things that matter to all of us and obviously they matter to society overall.”

“In the face of a pandemic – of a virus that, as yet, has no vaccine and with that virus on the rise again and winter ahead of us – if we are to achieve these priorities, we have to make sacrifices elsewhere.

“No country right now is able to have 100% normality.

“The measures we announced yesterday are tough, but they are absolutely essential.

“We are right now, I think, at the most critical juncture since March.

“In many ways, we are in a stronger position because we know more about this virus, but we must make sure we use that knowledge quickly, decisively and urgently.

“It is probably worth just reflecting on the fact that this is, to the day, six months since we went into lockdown on March 23.

“None of us would have wanted to mark this milestone against the backdrop of new restrictions, and I know so many yesterday, myself included, probably were feeling a bit downhearted that after all the hard work, we seem to be back to square one. I want to stress that is not the case. It is emphatically not the case, even though I understand why it might feel like that.

“The situation now is not the same in certain respects as the one we faced in March.

“For a start, the action we took to suppress the virus over the summer meant that we have faced this resurgence from a lower base.

“That matters and that is entirely thanks to the lockdown restrictions and all the individual sacrifices everyone has made.

“The rise in new cases, while it is accelerating, is also not as rapid as it was earlier in the year, but we must guard against it becoming so.

“We’ve learned a lot more about this virus. We still don’t know everything about it, but we know much more about it now than we did in March.

“Crucially, we know, because we have done it, that though our collective efforts, we’re capable of getting it under control.

“That is what we need to come together again to do now.

“These new restrictions will help us to do that, but they will only help us do that if each and every one one of us ,as individual citizens, plays our part and abide by them, so please comply with all of these restrictions because they will make a difference if we all do.”

“Remember that although these times are hard, they will pass, and they will pass a bit more easily, and possibly a bit more quickly too, if we all continue to look out for each other, so let’s pull together in the same way that served us so well six months ago in March.

“Let’s stick with it. Let’s stick together. If we keep on doing that – I am not going to tell you it will be easy over these next weeks and possibly months – but I am going to tell you with a great degree of confidence that if we stick with it and stick together, we will get through this.”