A conference hosted by sportswear giant Nike at a hotel in the centre of Edinburgh was “ground zero” for the COVID-19 outbreak in Scotland, a BBC documentary has claimed.
Around 70 delegates from across the world attended the two-day conference at the Capital’s Hilton Carlton hotel on February 26 and 27 - days before the Scottish Government confirmed the first case of the disease in Tayside.
However, it later emerged at least 25 people with links to the event were confirmed to have the condition, including eight who were resident in Scotland.
Health authorities were also reportedly told about this potential outbreak before March 1 when the first COVID-19 case was recorded, but did not release that information to the public.
The BBC’s disclosure programme said one guest who had been staying at the hotel at the time of the Nike event and interacted with several of the attendees had not been contact-traced by any Scottish health authorities afterwards.
Nike told the programme it instigated enhanced measures, including contact tracing and increased cleaning and disinfection processes in their stores and offices, and that all its staff had now recovered.
Mass gatherings were not banned in Scotland until March 16 - over two weeks after the event, while lockdown measures followed a week later.
An advisory panel was not convened until two days after that, with one member, Professor Devi Sridhar, stating there had "definitely" been enough information about the pandemic for action to be taken sooner.
Prof Sridhar, chair of public health at the University of Edinburgh, told the programme: “We should have been acting by mid-February. We could see that this was not easily a virus to be contained."
Figures released by the National Records of Scotland last week said a total of 2,795 people had died as a result of a confirmed or suspected case of the virus.
Prof Dame Anne Glover, president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the former chief scientific advisor to the Scottish government, said: "Mistakes have been made and that has resulted in lives being lost."
