Coronavirus (COVID-19): state of the epidemic - 18 February 2022

Next steps

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with Public Health Scotland, modelling groups, Office of National Statistics (ONS), Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and YouGov to monitor what is happening across Scotland.

Each week this report will provide an overview of the current Covid-19 situation in Scotland. This will include real time data on case rates, hospitalisations and deaths and how Scotland's figures compare to those from the rest of the UK.

In the next publication we will include data as per the new case definition which combines Covid-19 cases confirmed by PCR or LFD tests, by specimen date, and we are also expecting to incorporate reinfections data by using episode based reporting. The report will continue to report on data from the Covid-19 Infection Survey and Covid-19 wastewater estimates to bring an insight in to the pandemic.

Modelling can tell us where the epidemic is likely to be heading. Local data and data by age group can highlight where problems arise, which can help in addressing some of these issues. In the coming weeks the roll out of the vaccine will continue to be monitored along with the impact of this on case rates, hospital admissions and deaths among different age cohorts.

Investigations are ongoing by NERVTAG, SPI-M, SAGE, UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), and Public Health Scotland regarding the impact of new variants and of vaccination; this will be reflected here as work is undertaken.