NHS Lanarkshire would need to more than double its coronavirus intensive care capacity within weeks if no action was taken to reduce the spread of the virus, Scotland's national clinical director has said.
Jason Leitch said it "takes almost no effort" for the virus to reach smaller communities and to start spreading.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon previously warned the North and South Lanarkshire council areas could return to near-lockdown when the new five-tier coronavirus system comes into force from Monday.
The areas could move into level four, forcing hospitality and non-essential shops to shut.
Mr Leitch suggested rural communities with low transmission rates may need to live under tougher restrictions if their local hospital is filling up.
He said parts of Lanarkshire are rural but nevertheless feed into the health board's three hospitals.
He said: "They presently have a capacity for 30 intensive care Covid cases.
"Now that's already double what they would have in conventional times.
"The present modelling says that in six weeks' time, we will need 76, unless we do something.
"And that's what we're doing – we're restricting people's liberty; we're making people stay at home."
Mr Leitch said it would be a similar situation elsewhere.
He said: "The public health advice will of course consider the local scenario, but it will also have to include the admissions and the ICU capacity."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel