Praise for schools’ response as health board hears high number of recent Covid cases are children

THE “VAST majority” of recent Covid cases in Shetland have been children aged 11 or under, a meeting of the health board has heard.

NHS Shetland public health principal Elizabeth Robinson paid tribute to schools for dealing with cases in a “really calm and controlled” way.

She told a board meeting on Tuesday that younger people tend to be not as unwell with Covid.

Meanwhile in the last week there have been 149 new cases of Covid confirmed in Shetland.

This is equivalent to around 15 to 30 new cases a day.

Meanwhile it is unclear exactly how many cases of the Omicron variant there are in Shetland as lateral flow tests do not allow staff to determine which type of strain is present.

But more than 90 per cent of cases in Scotland tested through PCRs show up as Omicron, and it is assumed the variant is dominant in Shetland.

Robinson warned, however, that although the Omicron situation seems to have calmed it remains unclear what may be ahead.

“We just don’t know what might be around the corner,” she said.

Robinson stressed the need to remain agile and ready to respond to any new variants.

Meanwhile the NHS Shetland board’s governance arrangements are due to revert back to normal after moving to fortnightly meetings in response to the Omicron variant in December.