Health

Nearly new 2,000 cases in Scotland linked to Euro 2020 events

Madrid Desk, Jun 30 (EFE).- Just under 2,000 coronavirus cases in Scotland have been linked to football fans watching games at Euro 2020, Scottish health authorities said Wednesday.

In a report, Public Health Scotland said that since the start of the competition on June 11 until Monday this week, 1,991 people who are Scottish residents had been diagnosed with Covid-19 and had “attended one or more Euro 2020 events during their infectious period.”

The report added that two thirds of those cases were people who had traveled to London for Scotland’s 0-0 draw against England on June 18, and that 397 people who were in the stadium had since tested positive.

It is unclear whether those who have tested positive contracted the virus during the matches or elsewhere, but thousands of fans were seen mingling with each other without wearing masks or observing social distancing at various spots in London ahead of the game.

Hampden Park in Glasgow and Wembley Stadium in London are two of the 11 host venues for the competition.

“A relatively small number of cases” have also been linked to the fan zone in Glasgow and the two matches involving Croatia and the Czech Republic at Hampden, Scottish authorities said.

Officials in another Euro 2020 host city, St Petersburg, which will host the quarterfinal on Friday between Switzerland and Spain, have said they will not increase their preventative measures, despite a record-breaking surge of coronavirus infections in the country.

In the last week, 750 residents of the country’s second-largest city have died from coronavirus. The number of infections has doubled to around 2,000 per day, while Russia, which reported over 21,000 new cases on Wednesday, has broken its record for daily Covid-19 deaths twice this week.

Despite the increase, which has been blamed on the Delta variant, the press office of the tournament’s organizing committee in Russia said the stadium would be allowed to open at 50 percent capacity, according to Russian state media.

“Our safety measures will be maintained, and they include the obligatory wearing of masks and maintaining social distance,” the statement said. EFE

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