The Covid-19 virus reached Scotland days before it was detected from multiple countries, according to a new analysis.
In the first four weeks of the outbreak, the virus arrived at least 113 times, mainly from other European countries, according to the genetic analysis.
Italy, Austria and Spain were prime sources of the virus, researchers found.
The findings come from viruses detected in 466 people, representing 20% of confirmed diagnoses.
Researcher Professor Emma Thomson, from the University of Glasgow, said: “Our study confirms SARS-CoV-2 entered the Scottish population through at least 113 separate travel-related introductions, leading to multiple clusters of sustained community transmission. We identified viral lineages with no link to travel as early as three days after the first detection of infection, indicating earlier introduction to Scotland and community spread before the first detected case.
“The emergence of continental Europe as the epicentre of the global COVID pandemic was a clear driver of the Scottish outbreak, with the majority of the lineages detected in this study related to European sequences. Cases with links to China and other countries in South-East Asia were comparatively not detected.”
Professor Thomson added: “The speed at which the virus took hold in Scotland and the UK as a whole following multiple introductions, mainly from other European countries, was extremely rapid. It is possible an earlier lockdown from countries with a high burden of cases, such as Italy, and other measures such as quarantine of travellers from high-risk areas, might have prevented escalation of the outbreak and multiple clusters of ongoing community transmission.”
Genomic epidemiology during the first month of SARS-CoV-2 spread in Scotland highlights the role of European travel in COVID-19 emergence. medRxiv 9 June 2020
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.08.20124834v1
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