“Stick with it, Edinburgh”

Council Leaders urge citizens to help keep Covid numbers down

Edinburgh’s Capital Coalition leaders today urged city residents to keep up and renew efforts to help limit the spread of the Covid virus. The call from Council Leader Adam McVey and Depute Council Leader Cammy Day comes after MSPs heard an update from the First Minister yesterday. 

A recent national decline in Covid cases has slowed in the past few weeks and hospitalisations and admissions to intensive care units are rising across the country. 

Cllr McVey said: “We know with this pandemic that we have to be constantly vigilant and respond quickly to changes in infection rates, so that we keep a lid on case rises as much as we can to protect ourselves, our families and our fellow citizens.

As we head towards winter we’re asking all our residents to please keep sticking together on this and renew our collective efforts to slow the virus’s spread in our communities. 

“Get both your jags and, if eligible, your third, booster dose when six months have passed since your second; carry on following the public health guidance on hand-washing, face-coverings, ventilation and meeting outdoors wherever possible; and test yourself regularly with the free lateral flow tests that can be ordered online or collected from chemists, libraries and our community testing centres.

Cllr Day said: “Unfortunately we’re definitely not out of the woods with the pandemic yet, although vaccinations have made a massive difference and helped us return to something much closer to ‘normality’ again.

“We all want to safeguard this progress and also we’ve got to reduce the severe pressure our health and care services are under as we approach the difficult winter months. That means we’re going to have to pull together, look out for one another and avoid giving the virus opportunities to spread as much as we can.”