Nike Edinburgh conference was ‘Ground Zero for COVID-19 outbreak in Scotland'

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70 delegates from around the world attended the meeting.

A conference staged by sports goods giant Nike at an Edinburgh hotel was ‘Ground Zero’ for the coronavirus outbreak in Scotland and subsequent delays introducing lockdown measures cost more than 2,000 lives, a BBC documentary reported tonight.

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Official confirmation of the country’s first COVID-19 case, involving a hospital patient Tayside, was announced publicly on March 2 - and the first death in Scotland was reported by NHS Lothian eleven days later.

However, the BBC’s Disclosure programme claimed the outbreak started after the virus was brought to Scotland during the final days of February.

A conference staged by sports goods giant Nike at an Edinburgh hotel was ‘Ground Zero’ for the coronavirus outbreak in Scotland and subsequent delays introducing lockdown measures cost more than 2,000 lives, a BBC documentary reported tonight (Monday, May 11)A conference staged by sports goods giant Nike at an Edinburgh hotel was ‘Ground Zero’ for the coronavirus outbreak in Scotland and subsequent delays introducing lockdown measures cost more than 2,000 lives, a BBC documentary reported tonight (Monday, May 11)
A conference staged by sports goods giant Nike at an Edinburgh hotel was ‘Ground Zero’ for the coronavirus outbreak in Scotland and subsequent delays introducing lockdown measures cost more than 2,000 lives, a BBC documentary reported tonight (Monday, May 11) | JPIMedia

The programme claimed one of 70 delegates from around the world attending a Nike conference at the city’s Hilton Carlton Hotel brought the virus into Edinburgh.

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The carrier infected other Nike employees, who then returned to their own countries. At least 25 people linked to the conference were reportedly confirmed to have been infected - including eight in Scotland.

Scottish health authorities were aware of the potential outbreak by March 2, but the public were not informed - as Nike closed many of its stores around the UK and worldwide for deep cleans.

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At the time, a concerned worker at the firm’s Livingston outlet claimed there had been a possible outbreak but Nike insisted it was part of a general cleansing programme.

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According to the BBC, Nike said it conducted contact tracing and increased cleaning and disinfection processes in their stores and offices, and that all its staff have now recovered.

It said those at increased risk were identified, close contacts were traced and public health authorities were satisfied there was no further infection risk.

But the BBC spoke to one guest who was staying at the Hilton during the conference who said he had been in close contact with numerous Nike delegates.

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He told programme-makers that he had not been contact traced by anyone from the Scottish health service to tell him about the risk of Covid-19 infection.

Despite knowing the virus had been present north of the border since at February 26 or 27,, mass gatherings were not banned in Scotland until March 16 while lockdown measures were introduced a full week later on March 23 in conjunction with the UK government.

Scotland's own advisory panel - which includes Professor Devi Sridhar, chair of public health at Edinburgh University - was set up two days after the lockdown was introduced.

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Prof Sridhar said there had "definitely" been more than enough information about the coming pandemic for action to have been taken sooner across the UK.

She said: "We should have been acting by mid-February. We could see that this was not easily a virus to be contained."

Professor Dame Anne Glover,president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the former chief scientific advisor to the Scottish government, added: "Mistakes have been made and that has resulted in lives being lost."

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BBC Disclosure also asked a team of epidemiological scientists at the University of Edinburgh to model what might have happened to Scotland's death rates if we had locked down sooner.

Professor Rowland Kao and his research team developed a model to simulate the epidemiological behaviour of the Scottish population based on National Records of Scotland figures published last week which said a total of 2,795 people had died with a confirmed or suspected case of coronavirus.

Prof Kao ran simulations in an attempt to discover the extent of the spread of the virus if Scotland had locked down on March 9.

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He said: "The question we're addressing here is what would have happened if rather than having lockdown on around 23 March, we'd done it about two weeks earlier.

"While there's quite a bit of uncertainty in what the final outcome will be, all those [projections] are now substantially below what actually happened."

The model, while allowing for uncertainty, predicted the death toll would have been around 577 - about 80 per cent lower than the actual total.

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Prof Kao added: "What that indicates to you is that these measures could have easily taken effect and reduced those death rates."

Scottish Labour's health spokeswoman Monica Lennon said: "Public confidence is essential and that means full transparency.

"We are supporting the national effort against this pandemic. We want our governments to succeed in beating the virus, and this evidence presented tonight suggests lockdown should have taken place earlier.

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"Information about a potential coronavirus outbreak in Edinburgh in February should have been made public as soon as the Scottish Government became aware of it."

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "Health Protection Scotland (HPS), now part of Public Health Scotland, and Scottish Government were alerted by international public health authorities on 2 March 2020 of an individual who had tested positive for Covid-19 following their attendance at a conference for over 70 delegates in Edinburgh at the end of February.

"The conference organisers shared full details of all delegates which allowed the Incident Management Team (IMT) to ensure contact tracing of all attendees. Close contacts of

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those individuals who tested positive were also contacted in each country.

"Investigation revealed that a total of 25 cases within and outside the UK were confirmed to be linked to the event itself or were close contacts of attendees.

"Eight of these cases were resident in Scotland. All were contact traced and reported in details of the number of cases in Scotland at the time.

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"NHS Lothian and Edinburgh City Council worked closely with the conference venue to ensure that all public health issues were addressed including advice for close contacts of

delegates and infection prevention and control considerations."

The Hilton Carlton Hotel and Nike were both asked for comment.