5000 Catch Covid While In Hospital

...and there may be thousands more

- Vivienne Aitken

ALMOST 5000 people in Scotland are known to have picked up coronavirus while in hospital.

The latest figures from Public Health Scotland shows 4789 patients contracted Covid through hospital-acquired infections since the pandemic began.

But the body admitted thousands more may have caught the virus in this way.

Doctors discovered a further 2083 probable cases and there were 1807 indeterminate” diagnoses. It means a total of 8679 patients, who were on a ward for an entirely unrelated condition, may have become infected while in a hospital bed.

The latest data also confirmed a 57 per cent increase in a single week.