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There was an outbreak of coronavirus cases at a conference held by Nike at an Edinburgh hotel on 26/27 February. Many of the details are in this article. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52634991
The Scot Gov first knew of the problem when they were informed on 2 March that someone attending the event tested positive on return to their home country. In total, 25 people at the event were found to have tested positive, 8 of them resident in Scotland.
There was no publicity at the time or subsequently until the facts were revealed in a BBC documentary broadcast on 11 May.
When questioned, Nicola Sturgeon said she had ‘asked at the time whether more information should be made public, and had accepted the advice given to her by health experts that this would not have been appropriate for patient confidentiality reasons.’
Notwithstanding contact tracing undertaken at the time, publicity might have brought forward people who had reason to believe they had had contact with someone involved directly or indirectly with the Nike event.
Meantime, in a named care home near Glasgow, 22 residents have died of #covid_19. These deaths, and those in other care homes in Scotland, have been widely publicised. https://twitter.com/C4Ciaran/status/1260275513274368002
Where is the ‘patient confidentiality’ for the care home residents, their relatives, and the staff who work in these homes, some of whom have also been infected?
Was the conference issue not one more of commercial convenience than ‘patient confidentiality’? Commercial convenience for company and hotel (I imply no wrongdoing by them), but above all for Scottish tourism? And of course, politically for the Scot Gov.
Various nationalists have noted that the company owning the Glasgow nursing home is based in County Durham. This of course is dog-whistling code for ‘England’ and part of the Anglophobia that lurks on the fringes of Scottish nationalism.
Some say the nursing home company should be responsible for PPE, testing etc., ignoring public health/gov't interest. They do not make similar claims about Nike’s responsibility for the health of employees at company events. Nike is not an English company.
Finally, it is worth noting the interim chief medical officer’s half-hearted endorsement of what happened. At the very least the judgement at the time of the first minister must be called into question.
