Covid in Scotland: No community transmission after Nike outbreak

Scotland's first recognised outbreak of Covid, which was traced to a Nike conference in Edinburgh, did not result in community transmission of the virus.

A Public Health Scotland report found a single case among the 71 delegates led to 38 further infections.

It was reported to Health Protection Scotland on 2 March last year, the day after Scotland's first confirmed case of the virus was announced.

But it only became public following a BBC Disclosure investigation last May.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon later hit back at suggestions that the outbreak was covered up and said details were not made public at the time because of patient confidentiality guidelines.

But she said she understood the concerns over the way information about the conference cases was handled.

The conference at the Hilton Carlton hotel was held between 25 and 27 February 2020 and attended by delegates from Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Holland.

The PHS report concluded: "The detection of 23 persons directly linked to the conference is clear evidence of person-to-person transmission within the conference/conference social events, and the 16 secondary cases shows limited onward transmission outside the conference setting."

Primary cases cover individuals with direct links to the conference while secondary cases relate to their close contacts.

Of the total, eight cases - six primary and two secondary - were traced to people who lived in Scotland.

A further 15 primary and 14 secondary cases were linked to individuals based in England.

Single primary cases were also detected in a delegate from Northern Ireland and one from Holland.

No deaths were linked to the outbreak.

Experts concluded whole genome sequencing results "strongly suggest that the actions taken by the incident management team to manage the outbreak were successful in curtailing onward transmission."

The report also said the sequence identified at the conference was not subsequently identified in Scotland.

"This represents one of several hundreds of introductions of SARS-CoV-2 into Scotland from February 2020 and there is no evidence of community transmission of this sub-lineage, which was not detected in Scotland after April 2020," it added.

And while it stated the source of the outbreak "cannot be definitively determined" it is said evidence supports the likelihood that the virus was introduced from outside of Scotland.

After the story broke Nike told BBC Scotland it instigated enhanced measures, including contact tracing and increased cleaning and disinfection processes in its stores and offices, and that all its staff had recovered.

Three weeks after the conference outbreak a national lockdown was announced.

Since the start of the pandemic 577,282 people have tested positive for Covid, according to latest Scottish Government figures.