New winter Covid wave coming as hospital numbers rise, warns health secretary Humza Yousaf

Another wave of Covid-19 is expected in Scotland this winter, the health secretary has said, as the number of infections in hospitals surges.

It comes after warnings of a double threat from coronavirus and the flu.

The latest Public Health Scotland figures show the number of people in hospital with coronavirus increased 12.6% last week.

Health secretary Humza Yousaf said the Scottish Government is expecting another wave and urged anyone eligible for vaccination to take up the offer.

Following a fall in cases since mid-July, Public Health Scotland said the average number of patients in hospital with Covid-19 has been increasing in recent weeks.

Public health expert and Government advisor Professor Linda Bauld told STV News she was “worried” about Covid and flu as she warned of the “big impact” influenza could have this winter.

Her concern comes after Australia’s flu cases more than doubled the previous record during the southern hemisphere’s influenza season.

It became one of the first countries to experience a simultaneous Covid and flu spike putting pressure on hospitals.

More than two million people in Scotland will be offered both vaccines over the next three months.

“The clinical advice I gave to my chief medical officer from the national clinical director is that we should expect another Covid wave this winter,” Yousaf said.

“It certainly seems like there’s some variance and we’re starting to see a bit of an uptick in some of our cases, so we’ll keep a really close eye on all of the data from waste water right the way through to ONS and everything in between.”

Almost half of people that caught Covid-19 are still suffering from symptoms up to 18 months after being infected, a study has found.

The first results of a largescale study into the effects of long Covid carried out by Scottish researchers have been published.

It found that one in 20 people have not recovered from the virus and 42% of people infected reported feeling only partially better within six to 18 months.

The Long-CISS (Covid in Scotland study), led by the University of Glasgow, is one of the largest of its kind to date and was set up in May 2021 in order to understand the long-term impact of Covid-19.